A Wizards Life in Magical Academia (re)
by Proteus Wei
Summary: [A Rewrite Of My Previous Attempt] This tale is one of children's quest for power, for love, for acceptance and for war. Monsters, wizards, witches, demons and a corruption of the light in a battle against ever present darkness. This is the tale of Harry Potter and his eventful teen years...
1. Chapter 1

A Wizards Life in Magical Academia _re:_

_Chapter 1__:_

**_Year 1_**

A lightless lighthouse creaked and groaned, battered and barely standing under the brutal winds and sheets of icy rain. The sudden summer storm brutally assaulting the coastline doing the dilapidated structure no favours. Slamming into the mossy stone, already weary and worn from decades of abuse, and whistling through gaps and howling against the glass.

Within the wet, weary walls was a family of four. A father, rotund and heavy with a thick moustache that gave the man the appearance of a walrus. A mother, a tall thin woman with high cheekbones and knife sharp features. A son, equally as spherical as his father with wispy blond locks and permanently pink cheeks. Then finally... a nephew with a lightning bolt scar that cleaved a path down from his hairline to between his eyebrows.

The time rang as 11:58pm on Tuesday, July 30th 1991. The nephew was the only one awake, his sensitive ears barely able to differentiate the howling of the wind from combined snoring of his sleeping family (whose volume rivalled that of a trumpeting elephant). His finger dragged through years of untouched dirt and grime adding the final touches to a rough picture of a birthday cake.

_'Happy Birthday Harry.'_ on its side and a trio of carefully sculpted candles atop the falsely frosted dust cake.

The nephew, Harry, sighed after processing the incredibly depressing idea that this was the closest he had ever gotten to a birthday cake; a dusty drawing on the floor.

The clock turned from 11:59 to midnight, Harry officially turning 11 on the 31st of June. The single tear that escaped his bottle-green eye at the thought of another empty, loveless birthday was thrown from his face when Harry jolted both backwards and upright. The chime of the clock, signifying the change in hour, had been muted by the higher volume of the vicious strikes on the lighthouse door.

_'Outside in that storm… someone is knocking?' _The truly incomprehensibility of reality caused him to ignore the frightened gibbering of Dudley off to the side, rudely awakened and quivering in fright. Harry's eyes did find the sudden brightness distracting enough to peak at, looking away from the door to see the light above them (the room that his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had chosen to sleep in) had been turned on and its occupants staggering out of it and down the stairs. Both individuals still in pyjamas, nightcaps and slippers as his Uncle Vernon waddled into the centre of the room. Holding a double-barrelled shotgun to his blue and white pinstriped chest.

"W- W- Whoever you are!" Vernon's defiant tone a poor mask for his unfathomable terror, "I- I'M ARMED!"

The man brandished the firearm in question aggressively, as if the figure pounding on the lighthouse door could even see the gun he was toting through the doors thick wood.

The knocking stopped, abruptly and without warning. The quartet stared at the door in disbelief, all wondering if Vernon's stammered threat had actually worked. Vernon's moustache twitched as a shake ran through him, Petunia ran cold, clammy hands across her long neck and Dudley, the rotund copy of his own quivering father, hid in the corner furthest from the door. The young blonde's hands clasped over his crotch as he whimpered, fat hands there to cover a suspicious, dark stain.

The whistle and roar of the wind was all Harry could hear over the sound of his pounding heart, his bespectacled gaze (green eyes trapped behind large circular glasses) never left the door.

"T- That's right… THAT'S RIGHT!" Vernon's volume increasing as his confidence ballooned, "Take your freakishness somewhere else you-"

**_WHAM!_** His sentence cut short as the door was smacked off of its hinges, the Dursley's (and young Harry) screaming in fright as it flew onto the dusty floor. A figure, a silhouette, black and mighty against the stormy backdrop, was framed in the doorway by the lightning and moonlight of the stormy evening. The figure seemed to pause and take in the terrified family he had stumbled upon before crossing the threshold out of the rain.

Harry's terror fell away to astonishment as the man came into frame, the light from within falling upon his gigantic frame to reveal that the knocker was a huge man. A man who had had to fold himself down towards his ankles to shuffle through the doorway. Straightening out on the other side he easily stood at over ten feet tall, the top of his head (where a waist length mane of onyx hair began the long journey down his shoulders and back) almost brushed the rickety wooden landing that Petunia and Vernon had run down from to reach the ground floor. The man's face was dominated by a thick, bushy black beard that matched in colour his equally dark eyes, said eyes like fat beetles that flicked from one of them to the next in observation. But Harry took this in and still found himself bafflingly, flabbergasted by the man's ridiculous size, his height and sizeable girth covered from head to toe by a humongous coat that looked to be made up of the pelts of many small animals and littered with pocket after pocket. Just as black as his eyes and hair and equally soaked with rain water, it dripped onto the dusty floor as it hung off of his shoulders and covered him up to his black booted ankles.

"S'freezing out there." The mountain of a man spoke up after a too long period of shivering silence, the man taking a step forward (ignoring the many steps back of the Dursley family in response) and scooped the door off of the floor in a single, massive hand. Harry watched in fascination as he turned to the empty doorway with the item in question and reached into one of his many pockets as he strode, stunning the boy in further wonder when he yanked a fluorescent pink umbrella from a pocket that couldn't have possibly housed it. With a quiet grunt and shove, the door was pushed and manoeuvred back into its original place and then tapped a single time with the metal tip of the umbrella. A flash of light and pleasant hum reaching the occupants as the door was fixed and the man turned back to look upon them once more, "Now, which o yeh is young Harry?"

Words escaped Harry, but questions burned through his mind regardless,

_'Who is this man? And what does he want with me?'_

With a squashed box of birthday cake in one hand and a very familiar parchment envelope in the other, Harry was entirely unprepared for the answer...

"Yer a wizard, Harry." Rubeus Hagrid declared, one knee pressed down heavily on the dusty ground in front of him. The boy's eyes unblinking as he beheld the friendly gaze of the man who had tied Vernon's shotgun into a knot and lit a roaring fire in the fireplace with a jab of his umbrella,

"I-I'm a what?!" Harry hissed in incredulity, certain he'd misheard the man,

"A wizard. Jus like yer mum and dad." Hagrid declared once more with a beaming smile, ignoring the flinch of the tiny boy as he reached forth and placed a gentle hand on his tiny shoulders, "Yeh can do magic, jus like me an' them."

Harry's body shook from more than just the frightful cold of the evening as he stepped out of Hagrid's grasp,

"Magic isn't real." A lie, spoke in a conditioned monotone by the boy who had been told this all his life by the man and woman watching the pair interact with equal measures of fear and hate.

"It bloody well is." Hagrid almost bellowed in his affronted tone, gesturing a hand around the room with such speed and force that Harry was wafted with displaced dust and air, "Whaddaya think this is? How would I ave been able to do all a this then."

Fire out of the end of an umbrella, said umbrella comfortably housed in a coat pocket, the simple fact that man this tall could even exist. Harry may only have been eleven years of age, but he was not a complete dunce. These seemed way too impossible.

"YOU TOLD ME THEY DIED IN A CAR CRASH!"

"A car crash kill James and Lily Potter, ridiculous!" Hagrid seemed to share Harry's rage at the quivering family, flinching away once again. Breathing even heavier as Hagrid turned his attention to Harry once again with a gentle expression, "Harry, yer mum and dad are alive."

Silence. Harry would never know how long he stood there in complete incomprehension.

"W-What?" Harry could only spit the single world in incredulity,

"I know it's hard to 'ear, but you aren't alone. Yer mum and dad are alive." Hagrid calmly and kindly intoned, a wistful expression settling onto his face as he continued, "Clever Lily I think. She was always mighty smart. Hiding you with Muggles, the las place anyone'll think to look for yeh."

"We'll be hearing no more of this!" Petunia roared, statement accentuated by a stomped foot. She stood at her full height before shrinking back in fear under the coal black gaze of the half-giant, "Sh-She abandoned him here. There was noting '_clever_' about it!"

"You freaks have poisoned this family more than enough." Vernon continued without a trace of his wife's trepidation, going so far as to brandish his wrecked gun shakily with every word, "And I will not stand for any more of it!"

"Don't be testin me ere today, Dursley." He ordered lowly, making a shiver run the length of all of their spines.

"Are you… telling the truth?" Quick to get over the dark look in the man's eyes, Harry's voice was quiet. Small, painfully meek and hopeful despite how ridiculous he felt to be asking the question,

'If he's telling the truth he would just be repeating himself, and if he's lying of course he'll say it again.' Harry shook a little from a sharp, wet gust of wind, 'I've got no way of knowing until it's too late...'

This man had an interest in him, whether it was malicious or benevolent Harry would not know until he made a decision: Could he trust the man with the warm smile, this giant who'd crossed the tumultuous sea to chase his family down?

He cast a look over his shoulder at said family. Vernon clutching his mangled weapon like a lifeline and not allowing his beady eyes to leave Hagrid for a second. Dudley was clutching at the pigtail by his buttocks with mute bafflement, Harry wondered if he could compute what had happened to him (in fairness, Harry was still reeling) whilst his mother dotted about him whilst issuing mournful noises unbefitting of a human being.

In all honesty, Harry felt bad for thinking ill of such pitiful people, but he didn't try to stop himself. They were cruel, spiteful, petty and deceitful; the Dursley's, frankly, the worst kind of people he'd ever come across. And as much as his gut told him it would be okay, Harry had no way of knowing if this Rubeus Hagrid was any better.

But the thick parchment in his hand was something he'd been looking for for YEARS.

An out.

So, honestly, there was only one decision to be made.

_..._

* * *

_..._

A day later Harry's head was still spinning. Barely able to focus on this Diagon Alley and the bank he was being dragged towards.

The building of Gringotts Wizarding Bank reminded Harry of something out a dream, then again, so did the entirety of Diagon Alley. The alley itself was a cobbled street, bustling and alive with shops and buildings on either side arching up and out of sight. Men and women in robes and costumes of every conceivable colour marched and shoved back and forth.

Harry's nose was assaulted from all sides by scents both fascinating and foul, his eyes caught by sights so unusual and wondrous that the boy felt ashamed for looking away and his ears assaulted by noises (voices, animal cries, even explosions and cracks of air). Harry transitioned sharply from awestruck observation to fearful, over-sensitised cringing. The magical world, hidden in plain sight from the 'Muggles' was wondrous and noisy and Harry was having trouble taking it all in.

The Gringotts building made of immaculate white marble, almost an eyesore under the bright, warm sunlight and whilst surrounded by the dourer décor of the rest of the street. Columns and steps inlaid with gold displayed the entrance, looking more like the stairs to the pearly gates rather than to bank run by cut throat, sharp toothed, three-foot tall goblins with an unhealthy obsession with gold. Those words had been spoken by the bartender of the Leaky Cauldron Tom not five minutes ago, Harry didn't think they were particularly pleasant so decided he would not be repeating them.

"Come 'long then" Came the genial, booming voice of the man shaped mountain who had announced himself as Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry the night before. Hagrid striding up those very steps that Harry had been admiring and leaving him to scurry after. His eyes flicking around nervously the higher they ascended.

When at the huge, dark doors, Harry ignored the large golden plague above them as well as the intricate designs that were painstakingly etched into the stone surface, instead focussing on the armed, armoured sentries on each side. Dressed in armour Harry found reminiscent to Ancient Romans from history at school, wielding pikes and holding large shields. Swords were sheathed at their hips and the sentry on the lefts hand twitched around the hilt. Although they stood shorter than Harry's slight frame, he was intimidated all the same as their black eyes followed their approach and their lips both twisted into an ugly sneer. Harry shuddered and kept walking, refusing to look at them even as he felt their gaze on him.

The interior was illuminated in golden light by a multitude of hanging chandeliers. An immaculate white tiled floor lay beneath Harry's feet that his rubber soled shoes squeaked against with every step, causing Harry to blush in the quietness of the room. Little sound being made otherwise, the soft scribble and scratch of writing and whispered conversations between men, women and the hooked nosed goblins themselves. The goblins sat atop high seats in three piece suits, most wearing small pairs of circular glasses similar to his own. Desks separating them from the wizards and witches they were looking down upon, an air of disdain and forced professionalism hanging over each one Harry's eyes fell upon.

Hagrid, straightened his thick black coat and marched towards the only free desk. The goblin behind it, as Harry approached, was called Griphook (by the name tag on his lapel) and he sighed in resignation as he watched their approach,

"Mornin' Master Teller." Hagrid said, his tone both cheerful and nervous. He tugged at his shaggy beard as his greeting hung in the air for a few seconds,

"Good day." Griphook said curtly as he straightened his glasses, "What business do you have?"

"Erm, well I'm 'ere escorting a firs' year on 'is shoppin'" Hagrid stated, jabbing a thumb down at Harry, causing said goblin to make a big show of leaning forward to get a better look at him.

"Who is this… urchin." He addressed him, looking Harry up and down with his beady, coal black eyes and making it no secret that he did not like what he saw,

Harry silently bristled. His emotionless mask not falling despite his stomach twisting in quiet irritation.

"M-My name is Harry Potter." He declared, his anger at the assessment doing wonders in alleviating his initial fear, "I do say, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Master Griphook."

"False platitudes will get you nowhere, Mister Potter." The upturned nose and snarky tone at Harry's reply all Harry needed to drop the formalities.

"Then how about brutal honesty? You hook nosed git. Don't judge me, when you obviously fell in the kitchen one day and landed on that butchers knife you call a nose." He snapped out his words with snarling lips and a hot gaze, too incensed to immediately regret it.

The bank was silent, all eyes falling on that mere slip of a child, dressed in clothes several sizes too big, daring to insult a goblin so freely in his own territory (whilst surrounded by his comrades). The goblin in question, Griphook, seemed appropriately affronted,

"I would watch your tongue whilst in this establishment, child." he hissed with a glittering, murderous gaze,

"Or what? You gonna cut it out with that monstrosity you have on your face there? Knife nose." Harry growled, confusion and other swirling emotions finding the perfect outlet in this rude, stubbly creature.

"'Arry! Stop!" Hagrid hissed, looking to Griphook with a nervous, placating smile, "Sorry, e's been raised by Muggles and doesn't really... know what to do..."

Griphook was silent, letting Hagrid stammer along for a bit as he leaned back,

"No bother, I did start it. I apologise for the slight Mister Potter." H eventually put the man out of his misery, though not seeming remotely apologetic,

"And I apologise too, for my comments." Harry responded, he too not entirely sorry. He could sense something from Griphook, something akin to... amusement?

"Do you have Mister Potter's key?" Griphook asked in a voice like gravel,

"Erm, right 'ere." Hagrid declared before rifling through his many pockets. Harry suppressed a sigh, Hagrid seemed nice enough, though a bit airheaded.

After two solid minutes, Hagrid produced a small, golden key. Passing it to Griphook almost reverently . He then smiled down at his curious charge, Harry having asked how he was going to afford the things on his school list just before they entered after all. During the wait, Harry was left wondering if someone, likely/hopefully his parents, had left him money for his school after all.

His parents. Harry didn't quite know how he was supposed to address the mess of complicated feelings he had regarding them now. He had spent his entire life KNOWING that his mother and father had died in a drunken car crash, the same crash that gave him the vicious, lightning shaped scar on his forehead. He had grown up KNOWING that his parents were arrogant lay-abouts, with his father being a drunk to top it off. And he grew up KNOWING that even his own parents hadn't wanted him. But those 'facts' had been decimated by the arrival of the half-giant Hagrid the previous evening as they (being the Dursley's and himself) shivered in the lighthouse escaping the torrent of owls and letters.

His parents were alive! They hadn't died in a car crash but had left him with the Dursley's, after he miraculously destroyed an evil serial killer hell bent on taking over the world. Harry tried not to think about it. He wasn't ready to deal with the over load of information he had received (which included, but was not quite limited to, his apparent fame).

"I apologise." Griphook cut into his thoughts with an air of smugness, "I'm afraid that this account was closed by the account holder."

Harry's brow furrowed in confusion whilst Hagrid's eyes widened in shock,

"B-But the account 'older is righ' 'ere and he hasn't stepped foot in Gringotts before today!" Hagrid almost roared, jabbing a thumb at Harry who was confused,

"The account holder, Mr…" Griphook began,

"Hagrid. Rubeus Hargid."

"Well, Mister Hagrid. The account holder is not young Mister Potter. But his parents James and Lily Potter. Who on a visit on the 18th of September 1989, had the trust fund of one Harry James Potter closed with immediate effect." Griphook declared, reading off a sheet of parchment without a shred of amusement or smugness, "I'm sorry to say, but this key is now quite useless."

Griphook handed it back and Hagrid received it wordlessly. His mouth opening and closing like a fish as he evidently had no words. So, Harry chose to speak in his stead,

"How am I supposed to get my supplies now?" Harry inquired carefully, his heart hammering in his head as he spoke. The pace quickening as he saw the goblin smile toothily, shark-like fangs on display for the eleven-year-old to behold,

"Well, as with most muggleborns or half-bloods hailing from the muggle world, we offer a student loan. We offer competitive interest rates and you won't have to make any repayments until you finish your education." Griphook stated, he smirked monstrously despite his business-like tone.

Harry paused as a parchment leaflet was shoved towards him and he was urged to read it. Relying heavily on context cues to ascertain the meaning of some of the jargon present, but Harry was able to get the general gist of what was written.

Before, his blood had ran cold. Now it pounded in his ears and roared through his veins like fire,

"So, if I want to go to Hogwarts, I have to take out a loan with you guys. And then I'll be spending the rest of my life giving you half of whatever I earn?!" Harry growled darkly, attention being drawn to him once again. The goblin Griphook's amusement seemed to blossom further as he leaned forward onto his elbows and peered down his long nose at the boy several times his junior,

"As I said, competitive interest." Griphook replied with glee, "Other branches would have just taken everything until the debt is settled, even going so far as to charge your descendants also until the debt is repaid. Now, although we here at Gringotts London do not practice the former we do partake in the latter."

Griphook was about to gleefully ask the wizarding youth if he had any questions, but was given pause at the boys state. Not because of his confrontational stance or the glare of his bottle green eyes, but rather the oppressive aura that flowed from him like an increase to gravity itself. A vicious, vengeful pressure that made breathing more difficult, a pressure that Harry Potter stood at the epicenter of.

Harry ignored the various sentries and guards turning to him cautiously, hands on weapons in preparation for a confrontation. His attention was firmly on the goblin before him (who wasn't smiling any more) as he answered an unspoken question with,

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

Griphook gulped and pushed down the terror under his skin as best he could as he witnessed the tiles beneath the young wizard's feet crack. What he was laying witness to was unrestrained power, monstrous and primal. The guards had yet to move, most of them looking quite reluctant to do so. Thus, Griphook very much feared for his life.

"Mister Potter, I-I understand that you are distressed. But please be calm." Griphook tried, but winced as the child's eyes narrowed murderously. His blood ran cold when he saw colour in the boy's eyes change from an inviting (if somewhat piercing) green to the familiar, icy jade of the Killing Curse,

_'Perhaps it would be for the best that a beast like this NOT learn magic at all.' _He thought as he found it hard to draw breath under the angry weight of the boy's prepubescent magic. Griphook didn't know wizards could possess such dense and potent magic at such a young age.

"I understand that this situation may not be ideal, but if you follow me we can have a word with the loan department and come up with a more beneficial deal." Griphook said with a grimace. Flinching when the leaflet he had passed to the child was hurled into his face with a terrifying growl of,

"Screw you."

Instantly the pressure was gone, the boy marching unhindered out of the bank. Harry Potter leaving dozens of stunned onlookers, including a nervous half-giant (who quickly rushed after him) and a goblin, breathing heavily as he clocked out for a break and thanked the gods he was still alive.

"'Arry!" The booming tone of the gigantic man was peppered with heavy gasps as he strode after the rapidly retreating child, "There ain't any other wizardin' banks in the country. I know that you ain't 'appy but you need to-"

"I don't NEED to do anything other than figure out how I'm going to make the money I need to get my things." Harry growled. Silencing Hagrid with his rage and intensity, the man failing to understand how someone so small could be so angry. Harry turned his eyes to him and Hagrid flinched at their Killing Curse green, "You said the train leaves on the 5th, correct?"

Hagrid nodded mutely and Harry sighed.

"Can I have the letter and the vault key, please." He said, adding please as an after-thought in a much more subdued tone. The boys uneven breaths settling as Hagrid shakily handed over the items where Harry stuffed them all into the oversized pockets of Dudley's hand-me-downs, "Thank you for bringing me and for helping me. I'll take it from here."

And Harry stormed down the steps and, before Hagrid could even articulate his desire for the boy to stop, he disappeared into the crowd…

* * *

_**[Authors Note]**_

_**Hi! If you're here from my other version of the story then thanks for your patience. **_

_**I really loved writing the original and very much wanted to finish it AND 'A Wizards Life With Monster Girls', but was not pleased by my writing style and how the story was progressing.**_

_**I plan on taking things just a little slower but it will be following the same plot I planned for the last one.**_

_**I hope you enjoy reading it, peace out!**_


	2. Chapter 2

A Wizards Life in Magical Academia _re:_

_Chapter 2__:_

**_Year 1_**

This crowd was not a pleasant one to be in, particularly for the wiaf of a boy that Harry Potter was. Tiny as he was, most adults didn't even know he was there until they were on top of him, by then it was hard to naouvere around him even if they felt so inclined. And as skinny as he was, he wasn't much of an obstacle for those whpo decided to barge, tossed too and fro in a sea of disinterested to disgruntled individuals going to opposite way.

Harry couldn't breathe, he was seeing red. The calmness that had made him ask for the letter and vault key from Hagrid had dissipated after a few steps through the crowd. The noises and sounds he had found fascinating before were merely white noise, grating at him instead of turning his head. And all his eyes could see was people and an unfamiliar location. He was a long way from home.

Harry stopped walking with a bitter scoff, his eyes war with shimmering, unshed tears. It was painful and bitterly hilarious that here and now he missed Privet Drive and his filthy cupboard under the stairs. At least he wasn't alone there, his life made sense there.

He started in horror as thoughts, unbidden and unruly ruined any composure he had held.

'Forget my school things, I have no money. Where am I going to stay? What am I going to eat?' his head hurt as his mind whirled. He was in London, he wasn't a good geography student but he knew it was a long walk back to Surrey. Not like that was an option, even if the Dursley's had returned to Privet Drive, there was no way they would take him back in now.

He was well and truly alone...

**_SMACK!_** A strike to the side sent him stumbling aside as he returned to the here and now. Harry's arm and ribs ached from the strike and he glared up at the culprit, a man with long blonde hair rippling down his back. He towered above Harry in elegant black and silver robes with buttons, clasps and other accessories that glittered in the light, cold blue eyes regarding him with a disdain one would level against refuse or insects, manicured hands grasping the black and silver cane Harry assumed he had been hit with,

"Move aside you urchin, this is a public walkway." He spat in a high, aristocratic tone. Nose quickly turned up as he continued striding, the click of his shoes heard over the other noise. Behind him scampered a boy, likely the same age as Harry (judging from his size and overall look), offering a scathing smirk as he ran a hand through his gelled back hair, scampering by in robes just as fancy as his fathers.

"Are you ok, young man?" came a worried voice from the side and Harry turned with a start when a hand appeared on his shoulder. The hand belonging to a man, likely in his early to mid thirties, crouching down before him. He threw up his hands as a placating gesture at Harry's surprised (more accurately fearful) expression, "Peace. I'm not here to harm you."

Harry took him in as he worked to get his breath under control. He had a black hair that fell shaggily to his shoulders, a short, matching beard that looked far better maintained and bright warm eyes of the same colour. His skin was olive and a gentle, easy smile split his face. He was dressed in a brown waistcoat over a lighter shaded shirt, with black trousers and smart, lace less shoes.

"I saw that." The man stated with a vicious glare after the cane toting man that was striding away, "Malfoy is a piece of work. Are you alright?"

Harry took in a testing breath and winced at the ache from his ribs,

"I'll manage." He muttered, rubbing the area soothingly, "Thanks for the concern."

There was a pause before the man spoke again,

"Your clothes, you're from the Muggle world aren't you?"

"Erm, yeah. I didn't know about magic until recently." Harry said slowly, his hands subconsciously tugging at his one size too big hoodie and wiggling his toes in his too small trainers. He heard a mutter of 'muggleborn' with his sharp ears and narrowed his eyes suspiciously,

"Then, are you not here with a professor?" The man seemed almost worried in his inquiry,

"I… decided to do things by myself."

"That's not very clever."

"Well, it's my stupid decision to make. Besides, I got some bad news and they can't help me any more." Harry sighed, unknowingly worrying the kindly gentleman even further. He caught his concerned expression transition into a pondering one and even saw the bright light of an idea turn on behind his eyes,

"Well, do you know what cheers me up after bad news?" The boy shook his head and was fascinated by the sun bright smile that appeared on the man's face, "A big bowl of ice cream!"

"I… I've never had ice cream before." Harry stammered out. Wincing at the reveal and the pathetic voice he had uttered it in.

"Th-That… IS UNFORGIVABLE!" Harry recoiled as the man rocketed to his feet and thrust his hand towards him, "With me, young man. I, Florean Fortescue cannot allow such a thing to pass."

Afraid, confused and still reeling from the long day he had had, Harry stood frozen. Yelping but doing little to resist when his hand was gently taken and he was pulled along enthusiastically. Fortunately not taken far, pulled into what Harry quickly caught was an ice cream parlour sharing a name with the man who was dragging him along.

He was situated in a small glass table in the far corner, away from the windows, the bulk of the hustling and bustling customers who strode in and out with hands full of different coloured iced treats, different toppings atop each and every one. Harry's distracted staring was brief, the clunk of glass on glass bringing him back to reality as something was placed before him. The ice cream sundae sat in an ornate glass with a long thin stem. Within sat two generous scoops of chocolate ice cream with a third, larger scoop of vanilla sat atop them, smothered in sticky chocolate sauce,

"Here, something nice and safe to start you off." Florean Fortescue cheerfully stated as he pushed it and a silver tablespoon Harry's way with a bright smile, nodding his head towards the dessert eagerly as Harry stared at him and it dumbfounded,

"I can't pay for this…"

"It's on me, young man." Florean insisted brightly, though he silently factored away that information as something of concern, "I cannot stand by knowing that a child hasn't known the joy that is ice cream. It's why I opened this store in the first place. Did you know there wasn't an ice cream sold in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade before I came along? Outrageous I say!"

The man continued to speak and Harry desperately tried to pay attention, but he was frightfully overwhelmed at the gesture. Before him sat ice cream. The very thing that Dudley constantly screeched for at all times of the year and then flaunted at him in the knowledge that he wasn't allowed it. And this gentleman was just giving it to him. HIM. The freak of Privet Drive, whose own parents didn't even want him. Harry was afraid to even blink, worried that this dream of his (the dream that bordered so heavily on a nightmare) would end at any second and he'd awaken trapped in the cupboard once again.

"Hey buddy." Florean supplied gently, pulling Harry softly into the present with his soft gaze and tone. Having noticed the boy's fixed stare on the treat and struggling to soothe the pain in his heart at the child's hopeful yet lost expression, "Even with the charms, that doesn't stay cold forever. Take a bite."

His smile was gentle, imploring and honest, forcing Harry to acquiesce in its sincerity. Picking up the spoon he gently scooped away a small sample of the sundae before him. The sticky chocolate sauce forming a thin link between Harry's spoon and the dessert as he pulled it away and placed the sauce laden ice cream into his mouth.

Tears fell hot and heavy as the taste exploded against his tongue, Harry (ironically) freezing in place as his tongue was assaulted by the sweetness of the frozen treat.

"W-What's the matter? Do you not like vanilla? We can try something else." Florean was worried further as the boy dropped the spoon to the table and buried his face into his hands after only a single, miniscule spoonful. Sobs, wet and ugly, wracking through the eleven-year-old on the other side of the table,

"T-T-T-T-T-" The boy in question struggled to spit out his words as he heaved and shook, "T-Thank you so much. I love it."

Florean Fortescue would have loved to chalk the reaction down to his product being simply so amazing that the child had been moved to tears (or that it was an over exaggeration for some nefarious or tricky reason) But he could not shake what he believed to be the only legitimate and logical conclusion,

_'You poor child.'_ He thought morosely, daring not to think about what the boy had suffered that the simple act of giving him ice cream had hurled him into a fit of sobs.

"M-Mr Fortescue?" the man in question looked on curiously as the child spoke to him,

"What is it, young man?"

"I… I don't have anywhere to go, my family hates me and don't want me around-"

"Say no more!" He jumped to his feet in enthusiasm, missing the violent flinch of fear from the boy in question, "I have a spare bedroom above the shop, you'll have three meals a day and all the ice cream you can eat."

"N-NO!" Harry was able to stammer out in defiance, causing Florean to flinch himself then stare down at the boy in confusion. His bravado leaving him as he near deflated,

"Huh?"

"I- I'm not looking for charity. You are a very nice man and I don't want to just take advantage of a really kind stranger." Harry spoke up, confidence seeming to grow as he spoke, though his eyes were firmly placed onto the table before him, "I can cook, clean and if you show me something once I won't forget it. No matter how complicated or how different. So, please…"

Harry's fists clenched as he looked up into Florean's confused gaze, eyes bright and determined behind his thick circular glasses,

"Can you please give me a job?"

Silence. There wasn't a word to truly describe the depths of Florean Fortescue's disbelief, particularly when those dark eyes of his found a lightning bolt scar peeking out from between scruffy black bangs,

"A-A job? You're eleven!" That was what his mind was capable of putting to words as he reeled,

"I-I know I'm young. But I don't have any money, I need to be able to eat and pay for my school things." His entire body quivered for reasons Florean didn't know, but the tears looked to have stopped,

"What about your parents? You're a Potter, you must have a trust fund, no?" Florean regretted that incredulous question when the boys gaze dropped, nostrils flaring. He muttered something but he did not hear, thus he asked for him to repeat it,

"I said they closed it."

"What?! Why?"

"...I don't know."

"Well did you do something to... annoy them?" Florean asked, though he struggled to comprehend how big a slight the boy would have had to commit, or how petty his parents would have to be, to cut their child off financially, "I am certain that if you just spoke everything out with your mother and father then-"

"I thought they were dead until last night." Harry interrupted icily, freezing Fortescue's words in his mouth and forcing him to articulate a,

"W-Wha?"

"I grew up with Muggle relatives that hated me. They don't like things that aren't 'normal' and I guess they hated me because I was a wizard. They told me that my mum and dad had died in a car crash and that magic didn't exist." Harry explained in a small voice, eyes on the table again as he evidently relived something he didn't want to, "It wasn't until Hagrid came to get me yesterday that I found out that I was a wizard and that my parents were alive. Then we went to Gringotts and…"

Florean fell back into a seat across from him, slumping like a string cut marionette. Knackered just from hearing the mess that had been the boys day, he couldn't imagine actually living through that... mess...

"A-And you can't go back to your relatives?"

"I don't know what they'll do to me if I go home." His voice shook and Florean winced, trying to ignore the white hot anger roiling in his stomach at the thought of people existing who would inspire such blatant fear in a child.

He wanted to protect this child, he was evidently damaged and alone. But the boys determined statement before highlighted some kind of stubbornness that made him fear that he would not accept assistance in the way he was offering. So, a bullet was bitten,

"Finish your ice cream and we'll go into the back and talk about how the job will work, and what you'll be getting out of it."

The wide-eyed smile of relief and gratitude simultaneously warmed Florean Fortescue's heart and broke it all the same.

...

* * *

...

Crying into his beer was how he'd found him and (as much as he would vouch for the man and had a cross word to levy against him) Dumbledore did have to admit Hagrid was a difficult person to get information from when inebriated,

"You lost him?!" Minerva, a frightful woman when infuriated and not at all blessed with the same level of patience as her employer, though even he couldn't claim to be so serene given the circumstances.

Harry Potter was gone. Lost somewhere in Diagon Alley's crowds hours before Albus was called to the Leaky Cauldron to pick up his staff member, who was wailing and blaming himself for some unknown fate having befallen the boy. Now the room was filled with a quartet of the sniffling (but very quickly sobering) half-giant, his visibly shaking Deputy-Headmistress, Dumbledore himself of course and a sallow skinned Potions Master who was silently (yet very openly) broadcasting that he did not want to be there...

"So the brat gave you the slip?" Severus sneered as he spoke, but his tone and expression (in it's own minute way) was just as incredulous as his colleagues.  
"He, _hic_, said he'd deal with it himself!"

"Deal with what, Hagrid?" Minerva pressed her still teary-eyed target immediately,  
"Perhaps it would be best if you took a deep breath, yes have some more water." DUmbledore awaited the end of Hagrid's desperate gulps of the refilling glass of water, "Yes, perhaps we would all benefit from you... taking it from the top."

And so he did, and if Dumbledore was honest with himself he almost wished he hadn't. Not because the contextual information/reasoning behind Harry Potter slipping away on his own wasn't entirely essential, but because Minerva's jaw became so tight she looked as if she would gnaw her teeth to powder,

She rounded on him the moment Hagrid's tale was complete and he descended into wailing again (Severus descending on him with a very large dose of a Calming Draught as Minerva drew herself up to her considerable height),

"Unbelievable!"  
"I know this is-"

"This is why I INSISTED on attending." She snarled her interruption, Dumbledore not physically flinching at her venom, "Situations where the Muggle's reject the letters are ENTIRELY within my role to deal with. Why on earth you would send Hagrid of all people to such a delicate matter, I do not know."  
"It's hardly as if we could have predicted such a turn of events." Severus more muttered his addition than outright arguing it, volume only increasing upon seeing Minerva round upon him, "Nor could we forsee Potter's entirely ludicrous, and downright embarrassing display. Honestly-"

"Exactly, he was effectively entering the Magical world for the first time, ALbus!"

"Of course that's what she took from me." A scathing mutter they all ignored.

"Thinking he was being scammed by the Goblins after finding out his parents had... given him up rather than dying..."

Minerva's voice trailed out as she continued speaking. A hand coming to her mouth as she shook her head, the room silent (Hagrid's tears and sniffles absent as well),

"To think they would have told him his family was dead." In a tone far more... empathetic than one expected from Severus, his gaze seemed somewhat distant as and after he spoke,  
"No' jus dead, drunkards and scum who never loved 'im!" Hagrid snarled, his guilt wilting in the face of his red-hot fury at the mere memory of what he'd learned the night prior, "Of all the nerve-"

"Anger is not going to help anyone here, Hagrid." Severus sighed, brushing some imaginary dust from his sleeve before turning to face the Headmaster, "I shall keep my ear to the ground and make sure none of the... old crowd are harbouring our errant saviour."  
He was dismissed with a nod.

"We need to call the Auror's, Albus."  
"We shall wait for now." Minerva inhaled to unleash another torrent of words and was only barely halted by Dumbledore's raised hand, "I need you to first check in with Arabella to ensure he has not returned to Privet Drive."  
"Albus, you need to realise that some things are beyond even you." Minerva nearly screamed in exasperation, "This is what the Aurors are for, the longer we wait the less likely they will be to ever find him again."  
"A manhunt for Harry Potter will only cause public panic and could ENSURE the wrong sort get to him first. We need to keep this low key, Minerva." Blue eyes narrowed somewhat and his tone became much graver than it had been previously, "Harry is a public figure, an icon of all that is good within our world. I believe there are more people in this land who would lend him a helping hand than those who would mean him harm. I am-"

"Hoping an eleven year old boy gets lucky and ends up with one of the few who will take care of him, instead of any other manner of horrible that is more than likely to happen."  
"How do we know he's even alive?" Hagrid's voice was uncomfortably horrified, Dumbledore was fortunate he'd already, morbidly, thought of that,

"Simple, all of the old family tree's have features that allow the Heads to look in on the health of their heirs." He spoke calmly, hoping to placate with every syllable and doing somewhat of a swell job, "I have already reached out to James, I am sure we will have news on Harry's general well-being within the hour."

She grumbled and looked ready to continue arguing, but some further imploring had her out of his office and headed to Surrey. Hagrid following shortly after for some bed rest, giving him the day he needed to find Harry on his own.

And find him he would, there was no chance he would allow such a precious child to be wandering around alone fro a moment longer...

...

* * *

...

The sun had long since set when Harry had finished his 'first day'.

"Night Florean!" the black lipped girl with the claws and long green, scaly tail waved as she shrugged on her coat and slipped into her backpack, "Oh, and nice to meet-cha, Harry."

Harry numbly waved after the... Lizardman (was what she'd emphasised she was, with that fearful smile on her lips), a little bell tingling above the door one last time before Fortescue pointed his wand at the door and was rewarded with an audible click after the swish of the stick.

"Well, Harry, how did you find all of that."

"I... It was okay. Thank you for giving me a chance." He beamed, still towelling off his damp hands as he looked over at the sundae glasses he'd finished stacking on the counter. Harry peered out into the dark alley,

"Right, what are we gonna do about you tonight." The dark haired man was humming to himself and Harry, catching it, very warily looked over to him,

"Wh-What do you mean?"

"Heh, well I can't just let you wander out into the dark now, can I?" His brow furrowed when Harry's expression looked almost... guilty? "Wait? Is that what you-"

"I need to go, I want go find somewhere to sleep before it's too late." Harry began to slink away but his 'escape' halted by a gentle hand that settled on his shoulder.

"We have a saying on the Alley, wanna hear it?" Fortescue gently supplied with a small smirk tugging up one corner of his lips, the same expression curving up higher on his face, "You don't bite a giving goblins hand."

His face scrunched up in reply, Fortescue's smirk settling into a more acquiescing smile as he let Harry go, feeling somewhat guilty at how the boy put a step of distance between the two of them,

"Look, I understand if you... don't trust people and want to make sure you're independent."  
"I just... I need to earn my keep." Harry shook his head harshly and spoke up to him with an earnest tone, "In the end, you have to take care of yourself, you know? I cannot rely-"

"Everyone relies on someone or something, Harry." Florean sliced in carefully, a sly smile on his lips, "It's not shameful to owe someone a favour, it's only shameful not to recognise it."

Harry's brow furrowed, eyes downcast as he fidgeted (Florean truly seeing him mull over what he'd spoken),

"You've already helped me out so much today. You've done more for me than anyone else has... ever." He whispered the last word, a croak in his voice when he spoke again, "So I... It's fine Mr Fortescue, I promise. It's Summer so it's actually kinda nice to sleep outsi-"

"Stop." He regretted the force he put behind his word when the boy flinched away quite viciously, "Even if I paid you today, it's not going to be enough to get yourself a place to stay for the night."  
He was about to continue but the boy he was addressing flushed cherry after his stomach growled, at volume,

"And it's not going to get you a decent meal either." he folded his arms but waggled his eyebrows, hoping (though he hadn't been so successful that day) he'd drag a smile onto the boys face, "And if you think I, or ANY responsible adult, is just going to let an eleven year old boy I KNOW has nowhere to go leave the shop to just sleep rough on the streets."

Harry's cheeks were still red with his big round eyes now back on the elder again, he wasn't smiling but he did seem a little bit more... relaxed,

"I'm gonna show you to your room, I've got a few of my nephews old clothes that I'm sure are your size."

"I-"

"Just say thank you, Harry." He sounded a little tired, but a rueful grin found itself to his face once again, "I'm sure you'll pay me back some day, right?"  
A bright expression settled on the boys face as he was lead back behind the ice cream parlours counter, a determined light in his green gaze as they slipped by the glass display case before he firmly stated,

"I will, I promise."

* * *

_**[Authors Note]**_

_**Hi! If you're here from my other version of the story then thanks for your patience. **_

_**I really loved writing the original and very much wanted to finish it AND 'A Wizards Life With Monster Girls', but was not pleased by my writing style and how the story was progressing.**_

_**I plan on taking things just a little slower but it will be following the same plot I planned for the last one.**_

_**I hope you enjoy reading it, peace out!**_


	3. Chapter 3

A Wizards Life in Magical Academia _re:_

_Chapter 3__:_

**_Year 1_**

37 Galleons and 10 Sickles.

That was the cost for all of his books, ingredients and miscellaneous items required to go to Hogwarts for a single year.

Though actually attending the school itself costed money, something that caused Harry to truly seize in horror, Florean was quick to note that one only receives an acceptance letter once their tuition had been paid for.

Though it left Harry relieved that he did not have to fork out more money, it did leave him with a few more questions that Florean did not have answers for...

From Florean's other explanations though, he now knew there are 29 Knuts in one Sickle, and 17 Sickles make up a Galleon.

His shifts at Fortescue's were about five hours long, but actually four and a half (as he had to legally take a break). Additionally, because of legality, specifically because Harry was so young, he couldn't work any more than five hours a day (something called the Ministry very strictly enforcing that law) until he turned fifteen. Thus, the maximum he could make in a day would be 72 Sickles (or 4 Galleons and 4 Sickles).

Parchment was a Sickle per foot at Flourish and Blotts (but the Hogwarts Student discount gave him ten feet of parchment for five Sickles) and quills... good lord... quills went for as low as a Knut (the thing looking like a pidgeon feather) up to one he saw that was a whopping 230 Galleons.

With today being August 2nd and the train leaving for Hogwarts school on September 1st, he had just under a month to make the money he needed. His school equipment would take just over two weeks to comfortably make, leaving him the rest of the summer to save up for anything else required over the year and the next summer.

The first few shifts had been fine.

He got used to being behind the glass counter with the heavy grey till. Got used to clearing the teensy round tables dotted around the blue and white acrylic floors and peeking out of the floor to ceiling windows onto the bustling Diagon Alley beyond.

And the best part of it all, however, was not being recognised.

The uniform was a pinstriped blue shirt and hat with dark trousers, with the way his scruffy fringe fell he was able to keep the (apparently VERY easily seen and recognisable) lightning bolt scar of his hidden from all but the most observant eyes. Those who did have their suspicions were met with gentle shushes, a somewhat practised smile (and very threatening looks from Fortescue and some of the other, elder staff members that Harry wasn't aware of).

It all meant that groups of people flocking to him, as if he were the second coming of some messiah, did not occur. Because he was just some kid behind the counter, not the killer of the Dark Lord (or the Freak of Privet Drive).

The job was... painfully easy, at its most strenuous only when he had to rush sundaes and ice creams on small platters (apparently charmed to stick on the platter, remain upright and never spill) to customers. Mostly either plopped on the till with the instruction to just smile and take their money or hid away in the back in front of the sink, washing up.

Thus, his first week passed uneventfully. Wake up to make breakfast for Florean, work through lunch and explore this.. exotic alley before dinner.

The second week, not so quiet.

"Look, daddy look! I told you it was Harry Potter!"

That was how his day was RUINED, by a large eyed dark haired girl who refused to answer her parents angry hisses of 'Romilda' as she pushed some rumpled picture at him to sign.

Because she'd said this at the door (Harry would later surmise) as many crowded into the Alley for their own purchases, an electric feeling of realisation flowed through the crowd in and out of the shop. From the window Harry could physically SEE the information passed from one to another, points being made to their little store-front as more and more descended on the establishment to Harry's growing horror.

Shouts, cries, he even saw some tears and the bright white flash of camera's as he desperately (and, obviously, unsuccessful) tried to wrangle some order of the maelstrom. No one wanted to order, they just wanted to introduce themselves and bludgeon him with words. With everyone tripping over themselves Harry hadn't the slightest clue on what any of them were saying.

"If you're not here to purchase anything, I'm afraid you'll have to leave." Verity, an abnormally tall and skinny girl with the palest of skin and dark beady eyes, firmly snapped at the rushing mass after having to drag Harry back from a particularly grabby man.

"You're on break." She ordered and all but shoved him towards the door to the back, uproar following his stumbled escape. He staggered into Florean when the door opened, the man taking one look at the assemblage before ushering him into the back room with much more sensitivity.

"You stay in here for a little bit." Florean was gentle in the face of his frazzled charge, Harry's heart still in his throat and a tremor rushing through his body with every beat of it when he nodded.

He was fortunate that he had just under an hour before he'd have had to call it quits for the day, thus (when his heart stopped betraying him) he was able to quietly busy himself with neatening up the sweet smelling room he'd been stuffed in before slinking out.

When he poked his head out, the majority of the crowd was gone but there were still plenty who (in Harry's mind) shouldn't be there), including a man in obnoxiously patterned purple robes with a trio of dark haired men with red, uniform-esque robes behind him. The quartet were having some argument with Florean and Aster by the looks of it.

Harry scuttled up the steps in the back of the store in response.

A little stair case of worn wooden stairs that lead to a fairly squat, warm flat belonging to the stores proprietor.

Dark brown leather furniture, lime green carpets and a trio of doors set into a western most wall of the stuido flat Florean Fortescue lived out of. Discounting the bubbling cauldron in the corner under the window and a pair of floating knitting needles and a sewing machine humming away without aid, Harry honestly thought Aunt Petunia would be apoplectic at the sight of it. The furniture was very well lived in but everything was clean and well maintained and there was a distinct sense of the... magical that permeated throughout the entire apartment. Yes, Aunt Petunia (and of course his uncle and cousin) would have honestly despised every single bit of it.

Thus Harry loved it.

His room. Florean had apologised for the size, comparing it to a shoebox. But honestly, Harry had slept in what was essentially a shoebox and this did not even compare.

He had a bed, a bedside cabinet AND a wardrobe and chest of drawers! On top of that he had a small desk, a little chair and a window that looked out upon the alley beneath him.

Yes, it didn't compare to Dudley's first or second bedroom in terms of size, but Harry honestly loved that he both had space and things and that they were all pretty much within reach wherever he was in his room.

He twirled round to his wardrobe and snatched a t-shirt and shirt to wear over the top of it, slipping out of the one he was already wearing to replace it. Slipping back out of there, and the flat in general, after ensuring everything was neat.

Very used to being unnoticed, or perhaps used to making sure, Harry felt nothing in slipping out onto the shop floor (where Florean had ushered the old man in the ugly robes, and his entourage, outside) and off into the alley. Inserting himself into the torrential crowd with a bit more comfort than he felt the first time he'd been there.

_"August is always one of the busier months."_ Florean had told him when he'd quietly noted all the people rushing past their window, _"Kids and their parents stocking up for Hogwarts and all."_

But Harry didn't allow the people around him to bother him (despite the barrage of noise in his ears and the sickening miasma of scents) much as he instead decided to focus on what he wanted to do with the rest of his day, and thus where he wanted to go.

He didn't have his pay for the day, but he did have a small money sack (another courtesy of Florean's) jingling with the money he'd made from the week before. Which, due to his calculations, should be enough to pick up all of the books he'd need for the year, so he slipped into Flourish and Blotts and relished in the muted noise and the familiar scent of books. With a long, discarded receipt from Fortescue's in one hand with a small, borrowed, pencil in the other.

"Is everything okay, dearie?" A warm voice to Harry's left, wrenching Harry's wincing face from the prices he was peering at. A portly, redheaded woman with a soft smile looking at him with a face both concerned and expectant,

"Ah yes, sorry, am I in your way?" He stepped aside immediately and she smiled serenely as she plucked one of the Transfiguration texts he'd been looking at,

"Hogwarts, dear?" She plopped the book in her own basket as she inquired,

"Yeah, it's my first year." He turned from her to grab his own copy of the book, wincing again at the steep price the shop was asking for it, "Are all these books so expensive?"

"Are you on a of a budget, dear?" She hummed in quiet question, fixing her skirt a bit as her eyes flicked out to the exterior of the store, then to the cashier whose gaze had not left Harry upon him entering. He nodded slowly and was rewarded with a smile that was strained, somewhat, by a thoughtful expression,

"Well, I don't know if your guardians will be comfortable, but on one of the side alleys there is a second-hand book store that sells most of the Hogwarts texts for about half the price they are sold for here."

"Really?"

"Yes, though I prefer to get my own kids a newer book when I can I normally pop in there for books." She sighed a little after her words and Harry wondered she suddenly looked so uncomfortable.

With directions in mind, and a scowling shop clerk at his back, Harry was out and in the crowd once again.

All the way to the neck of Knockturn Alley.

Dingy, damp and entirely uninviting. Harry had been given the appropriate warnings about this place and they had not... entirely fallen on deaf ears. But even with warnings in mind that Knockturn Alley was a hub of dark magic (whatever that ACTUALLY meant) the place looked gross on its own. Puddles of stagnant water, even though it had not rained in days with shady looking individuals elaning against walls or walking from the light further into the dim distance. The roofs almost touching with how narrow the alley actually was but it evidently widened out the somewhere further in.

All on its own it looked uninviting, and Harry would not have entered at all (taking his chances with the more expensive shop he'd fled) had the sign he was looking for not been a few steps in.

The cobbles beneath his feet transitioned to smooth stone when he steeled himself enough to step over the line and inside, cautious shuffled steps evolving into a near jog VERY quickly as he bored down upon, **_'Webbes Books'_** and slipped in before the hooked nosed witch staring down the alley at him could get any ideas.

The tinkle of a small bell was distant, sounding as if it had come from somewhere other than above his head.

Followed by a very loud CLICK CLICK sound from somewhere just as distant.

"Hello?" An empty store met by the eleven year olds gentle call,

The store was nigh-cavernous, book shelves stuffed to bursting but all pushed to the shops walls. Leaving an open space in the centre of the shop, lit up alone by a low hanging trio of lanterns that acted as the only light source in the room when Harry let the door click closed behind him.

CLICK CLICK! The heavy, fast and LOUD sound of... scuttling? It came again. It came closer.

Had a shadow not crossed over him, Harry would likely have just fled at the noise and never looked up to the ceiling,

and seen eight red eyes peering down at him from the dark. A surprised, but curious intensity present in those red globes Harry had no word for. A part of him wanted to scream but noise was trapped in his throat, but it wasn't in hers,

"You lost or a customer?" A gravelly, scratchy sounding voice,  
"I... I just want to get my H-Hogwarts books. A lady recommended this place?"  
"Describe her, please?" The abrasive edge in the first question was entirely absent in this one, a womanly voice now leading and gentle,

"Erm, she was a bit... big and had orange hair."  
"Hmm, sounds like Weasley. I'd be surprised if SHE of all people would send a little waif my way." An hum that took on an amused lilt as her sentence progressed, "What with her... opinions on non-humans."

Harry was very disconcerted when the eyes, those glowing scarlet pools entirely lacking sclera or pupils, moved. The woman (?) above him evidently walking about on the ceiling with that distinct scuttling CLICK CLICK.

"Well, sorry for not being hospitable." She dropped from the ceiling and landed before him, "Hey morsel! Aren't you a cutie?"

Spider. The body of a woman, voluptuous and pretty, skin moonlight pale and curly tresses of silky black hair falling to her waist. That body, wrapped up in a small top that covered her chest and nothing else (straining to do so in a way Harry absently thought MUST be uncomfortable) somehow organically grafted onto the abdomen of a huge, man sized spider. Said abdomen a deep, almost black, shade of purple, a shiny carapace that glimmered under the flickering lamplight.

Though second glances showed her human half (for lack of proper terminology) wasn't entirely human. Her arms from the elbow down were encased in the same deep purple shell like armour that comprised her abdomen and spear like legs. Her teeth, in the brief moment she spoke and gave him a toothy grin, Harry saw a mouth full of serrated, dagger like teeth and the most obvious thing were the four pairs of ruby red eyes that really did GLOW in the dim light.

When Harry failed to speak again, the spider-woman decided to fill the silence herself. Tone airy and uncaring,

"You said Hogwarts, right? I actually grew up there!"  
"H-Huh?"

"Don't be too surprised, morsel. There's a big wood there called the Forbidden Forest, someone introduced my sire there and she made a nest about fifty years ago. Cue me and my sisters!" Her eyes peeked the list in his hand and she swiped it from him far faster than he could see, turning her back to him as she hummed to herself and read along. Flitting off to the shelves to Harry's left, whistling lowly,

"I met my ex-husband there, a lovely man if a bit... odd. Helped me set up my store before we separated." She was so cheerful as she moved, her clawed fingers either slipping the spines off shelves or making odd pulling motions with her fingers. Had the light not caught them a few times too many for Harry to miss, he would have entirely missed the threads moving.

"This is everything, correct?" She inquired lowly after she scurried back over with a small mountain of about half a dozen tomes in her arms.

A bit hastily, Harry slipped the list from her and very carefully checked the books against it under her very intrigued gaze. It crawled over him like a mass of ants,

"Ye-Yeah, this is everything." Harry murmured his answer, adding a much quieter, "Thank you."

"I'm always right, little morsel." She grinned down at him before scooping up the books, balancing them like a tower in one hand; a smug air emanating from her.

"M-My name's Harry, by the way." The spider-woman stepping closer on her long eight legs, towering above the tiny boy as she ruffled his wild black hair with a sincere, yet condescending smirk on her thin pink lips,

"I got that." Her cold hand (so close that Harry could feel how deathly sharp those finger were) grazed across his skin and briefly lifted his fringe to peek at what he hid underneath it, "My friends call me Junior, cause I was the oldest and got my mommy's name. You can just call me that, lil morsel."

"J-Junior? Okay." He silently cursed himself, ONCE AGAIN, for the slight stammer in his voice as she spoke. Particularly as she gave him a very telling look, "Please stop calling me 'morsel'."

Harry made his voice as firm as he could make it, his whole body wavering as she snorted,

"Nah, you look yummy so I'm not callin you anythin else." She spoke lowly, a husky and smooth in a way that sent a icy shiver dancing down the length of his spine.

"Aww, are you afraid of spiders." He was a bit quick to shake his head and she chuckled a little heartily, "You sure morsel? There's nothing shameful bout it."  
"I'm really not, there were spiders in my cupboard when I was little. They kept me company." Truth. The only things that had kept him company in that cramped, filthy place. He had never minded spiders, something he only really thought about as a woman with a gigantic spider as a replacement for her legs, cupping his chin in a

"Why's you're heart beating so fast, little morsel?"

"You're just... very close." He stepped back a bit, shrinking out of her gentle grasp on his face.

His nose was finally filled by the scent of lilac that clung to her skin, rather than the dusty must of the rest of the shop. Eight red eyes blinked and she briefly paused, before her head was thrown back in hysterical laughter,

"Awww! Morsel, yer makin me blush!" Junior's pale cheeks indeed dusted pink as she grinned, going so far as to swoop in (ignoring a sharp 'eep' from her unsuspecting target) and planting a warm kiss on his own red cheek, "I'm really gonna have to eat you up now, morsel. Keep coming back now, you hear?"

"Seriously though, Flourish and Blotts are con artists with a really poor selection." For the first time, Junior stepped back, a solid foot between her and the breathless, blushing boy whose eyes never left hers, "They think they're the only game in town and encourage newbies into thinking the same."

She shook her head and continued muttering, to herself this time, as Harry just registered he'd just been kissed by a (granted, a strikingly beautiful one) spider-girl. Said arachne scooping his purchases into a brown cloth bag and quoting him a price that didn't even approach half of what he'd been expecting to spend. The transaction, on Harry's end, was handled a little numbly and he stumbled out into the light again with a promise to come by again when he needed to.

He had other plans for the day before this, but they had fallen out of his mind. Scurrying back to Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour instead, books swinging nastily into his leg with every step.

...

* * *

...

"AH! Harry, the man of the hour!" A cheery man's voice, distinctly elderly and jovial. His eyes fell to the eyesore that was... the old man from earlier. Purple robes with cartoonish clouds across their satin surface. A long white beard tucked in under his belt and a pair of sapphire blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles. "My name is Albus Dumbledore, Harry. I'm-"

"You're my headmaster." He blurted out as the name hummed with familiarity,  
"Well, not just yet I suppose." He grinned a little crookedly and chuckled just a little at his own joke, "I'm very glad you came back when you did, lest I be inclined to order another bowl. I've already spoiled myself enough today."

"You went into Knockturn?!" Florean, Harry now noticing the shop's owner behind the counter, eyes on the bag in his hand. Stunned, Harry didn't exactly have the best response,  
"It was only a step in." The boy winced as Florean seemed to expand in fury,

"That is nowhere NEAR the point, Harry."

"It was fine." Harry muttered and again winced when that was clearly not something to appease him,  
"NO. It was and is not fine, Harry."

Harry's eyes found Dumbledore's after a second, slowly sipping from a long glass of a milkshake,

"I do think it was quite irresponsible, Harry. Dear Florean is correct that Knockturn is not somewhere you should be." The man nodded sagely as he spoke, said sagely image somewhat countered by the bright red straw

"Though I suppose it was a very Gryffindor thing to do, take a risk in the face of a reward."

He gestured a crooked finger to the bag in his hand (Harry having almost forgotten he was holding the heaving thing),

"Webbs Books correct, how is dear Junior?" He grinned,

"Erm..." Harry blinked at the question and shrugged, "Okay, I guess?"  
"I suppose it may have been an odd question, but I am curious at your... opinion of her."  
"Professor." A warning tone, hanging in the air like a threatening cloud from Fortescue on the other side of the counter, he was waved off by the older man whose twinkling blue eyes never left Harry's.  
"Wh-What do you mean, sir?"  
"What I said?"  
A very heavy pause hung in the air between them, a nasty weight behind Harry's eyes as he struggled to hold the old man's gaze,  
"She was... odd?" His mind flitting back to her eight eyes, pretty fangs and sharp fingers,  
"Is that all?" He sounded... displeased? Dumbledore sitting up straight in his seat as he levied Harry with another long, searching look, inadvertently aggravating the target of his look,  
"What do you want me to say?" Harry snapped, a thought very quickly crossing his mind, "Do you have something to say about her being part spider or something? Am I supposed to have an opinion on that?"  
"I'd be surprised if you didn't." A shrug and a small quirk of the corners of the man's lips as a ghost of a smirk.

Harry, sighed,

"Honestly, with Hagrid and the goblins and magic in general, I suppose it's just par for the course in this world. Spider-people are just a part of the world. I don't care." He folded his arms and after another long sigh added, "I don't have anything against her, she creeped me out a little bit but that wasn't because she wasn't human. I don't think any less of her."

Albus Dumbledore thoughtfully pursed his lips and, in a realisation that curled Harry's stomach, he felt like he may have said something his headmaster didn't quite appreciate. A sour look flitting across the older man's face incredibly briefly as he pushed himself up and away from the table, rising to his impressive height as he fixed another warm, gentle smile onto his face,

"Very well." He acquiesed, "I apologise if I made you at all uncomfortable, and I also apologise for imposing upon you for so long, young Florean."  
"Not at all, Professor." Florean acquiesed as he ran his hand through his own shaggy black hair with an exhausted expression settling onto his stubbly face, "I hope you're satisfied."

"Of course, Harry seems well enough." The Professor turned his eyes back to Harry, "Are you happy here Harry? Is Florean treating you well?"  
"Erm, yes. Absoloutely!" Harry nodded empathetically, "He is great and I am very grateful for all the help he's given me."

A gentle nod and sincere smile preceded the old man's goodbye's, leaving the Boy Who Lived and his employer to close up shop.

...

* * *

...

The door of the Leaky Cauldron creaked closed behind the Hogwarts Headmaster, the Muggle street bathed in orange lamplight before the lights were dragged from their bulbs,

"So?"  
"He's safe." Gritted teeth and a hiss, Severus Snape's reply when he shrugged off the invisibility cloak he had been given for the day and returning it to his employers grasp, "I remind you again Legilimency is not the part of the Mind Arts is claim mastery to."

Dumbledore brokered the same unimpressed ambivalence he had levelled at Harry,  
"You both downplay your abilities AND are exactly what I needed, Severus. Do dispense with the humility and provide a few more details."

A sneer was his reply,

"His relatives are likely to cause him harm should he return to them, Lily and James have cut him off financially and he is working for Fortescue, at his own request-" Snape raised his volume with that last sentence in anticipation of the headmasters righteous interruption, "-in order to make enough money to afford his school supplies."

As if he'd sucked on something sour, Dumbledore's lips pursed in the face of his companions impertinence. Said expression present for barely a second before a thoughtful look replaced it,

"Hmm, I have a few faces around here that can pop in to keep me informed." Dumbledore hummed to himself as he slipped a yellow lollipop from his inner pockets to pop into his mouth. A stunned expression on the sallow man's face,

"You're leaving him there?!" Snape hissed to Dumbledore's quirked eyebrow,

"I will obviously keep an eye out for our student to be, but I will take your word that he is safe where he is." Dumbledore all but shrugging, "Unless you have anywhere better for him to be, right now?"

The elder man offered his arm and was met with Snape rolling his black eyes and Disapparating himself; Dumbledore chuckled heartily before Disapparating alone.

...

* * *

...

Money questions whirred in his head. Oh, and Florean was still very angry,

"Unbelievable, Harry. Truly. If you think we were just joking then haha, NO. Knockturn is nowhere for a child to be, ever!" He seethed as he threw a diced onion onto a skillet to quickly douse in pepper, salt and tumeric, "I expect an explanation."  
Harry gave one, Florean pinched the bridge of his nose and was entirely unsatisfied,

"And you believed her." He hissed out and he very briefly focussed on the contents of his pan with a very harsh intensity. Said hard expression broken by a deep sigh and an almost baelful expression, "Please Harry, you can't just trust everyone you meet."

"I know that!" Harry snapped, folding his arms with a hard glare, "But I need to save money where I can. And it turned out fine."

"Just because things turn out okay doesn't change the fact you were irresponsible and put yourself in danger." Florean's rage had mellowed some but his tone still quite clipped, "Do not use the results to justify your actions."

Harry blinked in the face of that and Florean went so far as to roll his eyes. Next shaking his head before jabbing a finger to somewhere behind Harry,

"Look, over there in the corner." Fortescue smiled just a little, "You want to save money? Then you can have those, Mr Miser."

Following his finger, Harry found himself slipping from his place on the sofa to the corner under the window, where a small dark trunk and a cauldron sat awaiting him.

"Mr Fortescue, I can't-"

"What did we say about Goblins, Harry?" Stern and amused, Harry clamping his lips closed in reply but meeting his gaze with a glare that screamed petulant. Florean openly laughed and Harry flushed red, turning away from the man to look down at the gifts.

The trunk was a squat thing, dark brown and black with worn, brass clasps. The cauldron, Harry assumed, the same pewter bowl he had seen in the apothecary, just with a very thick layer of dust that came away with Harry's probing fingers,

"Thank you." He smiled as he offered his gratitude, but with his back to the man he didn't see the gentle grin his minder gave him back.

The cauldron knocked 5 Galleons from his list and the trunk 10 Galleons as well, 15 Galleons he could spend elsewhere was such a weight lifted, on top of the savings he'd made with Junior at the book store.

The only big ticket item he needed now (stunningly the books, telescope, uniform and the potions ingredients were astoundingly cheap) was his wand. Maybe he could strike gold again with a few more second hand shops and was quick to broach the subject with a pleased Florean,

"I'd recommend it actually. Especially with the likes of books and uniform, as they haven't changed in about a century.

Hell, if I could find them I'd have given you my old spell books, as a few of them are the same on here." He gestured a beefy finger at the book list Harry had written, "Though I DO need to tell you, your wand does need to come from Ollivanders."  
"Why's that?"  
"Ollivander will tell you this too I promise, but 'the wand chooses the wizard.', so there doesn't even EXIST a second hand wand option."  
"W-Wait, there was a boy I saw earlier today. His nan said he was using his dad's wand."  
"There... are some cases of that working out. Just as there are cases where it doesn't."  
"Either way, Harry. Nobody sells wands second hand, it isn't a thing that happens. There are a few options for wand shopping in Diagon, but for quality and I'll be pointing you to Ollivanders."

"How much money do you have left over then?" Florean sighed after ruffling through the bag Harry left on the counter and briefly remarking at the quality of the books he'd found. On the kitchen table Harry counted out the stacks of gold, silver and bronze,

"Eight Galleons and 12 Knuts." his eventual answer,

"More than enough to get yourself a good, Ollivander wand. We'll go together tomorrow, 'kay?"

"S-Sure! I mean thank you!" He got his hair ruffled by the man and a gentle grin.

* * *

_**[Authors Note]**_

_**Hi! If you're here from my other version of the story then thanks for your patience. **_

_**I really loved writing the original and very much wanted to finish it AND 'A Wizards Life With Monster Girls', but was not pleased by my writing style and how the story was progressing.**_

_**I plan on taking things just a little slower but it will be following the same plot I planned for the last one.**_

_**I hope you enjoy reading it, peace out!**_


	4. Chapter 4

A Wizards Life in Magical Academia _re:_

_Chapter 4__:_

**_Year 1_**

He wasn't ready for this.

Claustrophobia. Years of seeing the same carpets and walls, pale with the occasional scuff mark and hole that revealed dusty grey beneath. White branches on the periwinkle wall paper that Harry imagined shuddering like a real tree whenever a sharp gust of wind rushed up and down the hall.

He used to spend hours entertaining himself by those walls, hoovering or scrubbing whilst blowing at the white and blue walls and entertained by how the leaves shuddered and quaked with every exhale. All in his imagination of course, though maybe it was true, maybe he'd made it be via magic?

A dark grin settled on Harry Potter's face when he realised that, in some odd (almost morbid way), he really did miss the rote and routine of Privet Drive. Scoffing at the realisation that he wasn't as ready to leave all that behind as he thought he was.

Or perhaps he was, but the reality of the stark differences between in there and out here were just a little too daunting.

There were no pretty trees here, only loud people, Bumping and jostling him as he tried not to draw attention to himself. He couldn't bring himself to push and shove like that large family of noisy redheads to the left, and the crowd didn't just part in the face of that platinum blonde trio (with the gall to bring an actual peacock on a leash to a train station). He was just a waif of a boy, not the tallest of eleven year old's and very much a midget in the face of those adults milling about him. Thus his eyes remained downcast and hands were either pushing his spectacles back onto his face or returning to their white knuckled death grip on the luggage trolley.

Nobody was there to see him off, so he just boarded the scarlet steam train as soon as an open door presented itself. Huffing as he dragged and manoeuvred the unwieldy leather and metal trunk up the step and into the narrow corridor, wincing as a high pitched voice rang loudly behind him and cursing when he jumped. He glared down the corridor after the dark haired lady, running and laughing into the next carriage after passing him by, she paid him no attention so he decided to eventually return the courtesy.

It took him a few tries, but he found an empty compartment and invaded quickly.

The muted sounds of the station outside weighed on Harry's ears, the sudden change of volume after the door slid closed almost headache inducing. Thus, to ignore it, Harry snuggled into a seat by the window and took to people watching, quietly wondering what Fortescue was up to.

The platinum blondes were the first to catch his eye. Ridiculously opulent robes with two very beautiful parents and a son that was clearly their little angel, as they doted on him as he preened and soaked it up with the same pomp and grandeur of the albino peacock to his left (that many glared at as it decided to strut and flare its feathers). Harry rolled his eyes and decided to look somewhere else, not at all liking the image of the blonde Dursley's out there.

The next thing to catch his attention were the redheads from earlier. Six in total, including four boys of varying ages, a somewhat round woman who could only be their mother and a girl who hung to her skirts and looked up at her with big wide eyes. Eyes that were hazel and matched by the rest of her family, their faces splattered with freckles and all with the same fiery orange shade of hair.

The apparent matriarch looked oddly familiar, but he couldn't put a name to the face, instead noting how the boys quickly detached themselves from the group and made for the train, the final whistle bellowing above them and the girl at her mothers hip tearfully calling after them.

"Can I sit in here?" Reality. A girls voice at his back as he looked out on the one on the platform.

He started but didn't entirely jump out of his skin, turning to the doorway where a girl his age stood waiting. She was fidgeting with the pockets of her faded jeans and had propped a glossy black trunk upright against the open door.

"Erm, yeah, sure." He nodded a bit and she flicked an errant strand of neck length, onyx hair out of her face and subjected Harry to a hard stare from a pair of startlingly purple eyes. Her lips worried together and she gave a sharp nod.

At that she fully entered, dragging her trunk with her and fixing a t-shirt that looked to be a size too small on her, struggling to place her trunk in the luggage rack on the other side of the compartment,

"I can give you a hand if you'd like?" He was already on his feet and had moved to stop the luggage from falling back down and squashing its owner, shoulder to shoulder with her as it teetered in their hands,

"I don't need help." She snapped, cheeks pink from either embarrassment or exertion (who knows?), Harry was not impressed either way.

"Sure you don't." He muttered lowly, ignoring her wordless noise of irritation when he began to lift the heavy thing onto the rack above, "Don't bite a goblin's hand."

A little twang hit Harry's heart when it registered what he'd said, he made to ignore it and focus on the task at hand. Then on the girl across from him as he sat back down, a backpack at her side as she pouted and refused to look his way.

Heavy silence settled on the compartment like a blanket, the train having heaved itself out of Kings Cross by now and having picked up significant speed, London leaving them both behind on the otherside of their window.

Tempted to window watch for a bit, but hit with an odd nauseaous feeling at the motion, Harry went for the trunk above his head in hopes of sinking into one of his textbooks.

Faded and just a little squashed, Fortescue's trunk didn't hold a candle to the glossy and sturdy looking new trunk that belonged to the petulant girls across from him. Said girl seemed to have the same idea as him, having whipped a copy of _'The Dark Forces: A guide to self protection' _from her backpack as Harry dug through his folded socks for his dog-eared edition of _'A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_'.

But honestly Harry would never say he preferred hers to the one he knew as his, Harry sliding back into his seat and through the first few chapters of his book, petulantly ignoring the curious glances she thought she was hiding from behind her book.

"Thanks." She eventually murmured, almost too quiet to hear. Looking up only briefly he nodded, flashing her a small smile that she responded to with bashfulness.

Then Ronald Bilius Weasley barrelled into Harry's life.

In through the compartment door begging for a place to sit, which Harry obliged before the girl could even formulate her own opinion on the subject.

"Bloody hell! You're Harry Potter!" An exclamation that had Harry wincing when he scratched at his head sometime after he'd entered and talked his ear off about his elder brothers. Surprisingly catching on quickly to the sudden discomfort that settled upon him. the girl on the other hand, perked up immediately and locked eyes with Harry for the first since Ron had arrived,

"Oh, you're-" Her eyes flicked up to his forehead and Harry's mild enthusiasm immediately wilted.

He didn't mean to huff the way he did, she glowered in reply and buried herself behind her book again,

"S-Sorry mate, didn't mean to be so loud. You must get that a lot huh?"

"Only recently." Harry shrugged, "I grew up with Muggles, all this is still a bit new to me."

Harry's hand gestured about dubiously and, if Ron was surprised (or had some opinion on it) he did not vocalise it,

"Fair enough mate, sorry again." He shrugged, though was seen very curiously casting glances of what little of Harry's scar he could from under his hair, "Muggles? My dad's obsessed with em, not sure why though."

Later, when a notice flitted through the carriages about their imminent arrival (long after the trolley lady had fled and the sunlight was gone), the girl flew to her feet and dragged her trunk down with far less fanfare than it took to put it up there. Near storming out of the compartment with it as the boys nursed scorched fingers from Harry's first game of Exploding Snap,

"What's her problem?"

"I'm... not too sure." Harry muttered as he watched her go, quickly convinced that girls were somewhat weird from his first friend and instead focussing on getting changed into his robes. Sitting about, quietly twiddling their thumbs as they awaited the slowling trains eventual stop before disembarking with the torrent of the other, black robed students.

"Firs' years!" A shout over the buzz of noise, bellowed from a bear of a man Harry recognised as,

"Hagrid!" Harry called before he thought about it, dark eyes finding him and beaming as if nothing had happened between them a month ealier,

"Glad to see yer alrigh' Harry." The giant of a man cheerily greeted him, slapping him on the shoulders as he drew closer (nearly hurling him into the mud), "And I got somethin for ye back at my cabin, come see me when yer all settled in."

"Re- a, thank you." He smiled up at him before trudging along to a boat with Ron when hurriedly directed to.

...

* * *

...

The boats smooth glide over the black lake of Hogwarts school had left Harry in awe of the brightly lit castle Hagrid had lead them into. His eyes roved the high-ceilinged Entrance Hall in unabashed wonder, taking in the lazily moving stair cases, the shining and glistening suits of armour, the moving paintings and tapestries and the bright, translucent ghosts and phantoms that passed through the thick and heavy stone of the castle. The green-eyed boy-wizard barely registering the deputy headmistress's information about what was to come next as his eyes fell from their surroundings and to the students himself. Most of their eyes on the teacher as she spoke, Harry's eyes settling on one in particular, who still stood near to the door they had entered through.

Her face was heart shaped and pale; the bottom of her thin, pink lips was being worried away nervously between her teeth. Then Harry's attention was drawn, inexorably, to her eyes (as many were drawn to his), beneath the nervousness in her darting gaze was something that drew him in even deeper than the abnormal, yet stunning, purple colour of her irises. The girl from the train, alone on the outskirts of their crowd.

Those eyes snapped to Harry, sudden and without warning, staring him down in an almost accusatory confusion. The boy flicking his eyes away in embarrassment at being caught staring, shuffling slightly closer to Ron as he felt her heated stare boring in to his side as Professor McGonagall finished her instructions.

"It's true then? What they're saying on the train." A voice high and loud cut through the nervous murmuring that McGonagall had left in her wake, eye flowing to the alabaster skinned blonde who strutted in Harry's direction flanked by the two largest, roundest boys Harry had ever seen, "The great Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts."

His smile was condescending, his nose turned up and he walked with a particular sway and swagger that made Harry instantly unimpressed.

"Who are you?" Harry asked as politely as he could muster, even though his mind shrieked at him that he knew him from somewhere before and that his arrogant self likely wasn't worth the time or courtesy, "Have we met? I feel like we've met before somewhere."

That seemed to please the boy, porcelain white teeth displayed in a proud, victorious grin before he spoke again, tone even further steeped in arrogance,

"It's unsurprising that people would know and recognize me of all people." He decreed with a glowing gaze, "I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

_'Malfoy?' _Harry pondered the name for a brief second before a glower settled onto his features. Remembering the ponce now, and his incredibly poor impression upon him a few months prior.

"Oh. I know you." Harry said lowly, the grin and glimmer of the blonde before him melting away somewhat under the lack of a positive reaction. Draco's eyes flashed aggressively as they fell upon Ron's snickering face,

"Find that funny, do you? It's not like I have to ask who you are." He spat with venom, "Red hair and a hand me down robe. You're clearly a Weasley."

Harry's unimpressed stare became a glower when he saw Ron visibly shrink in shame under the weight of his words from the corner of his eyes, levelling that gaze to an ignorant Malfoy,

"You'll soon find out that there are some wizarding families that are better than others, Potter." Malfoy declared, thrusting his hand out to be shaken, "I can help you there. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort."

"On my first day in Diagon Alley your dad whacked me in the back of the head with a cane and called me an urchin." Harry intoned flatly, mildly enjoying the flinch and flush of embarrassment on the boy's face, "I think I can figure out the wrong sort for myself, thanks."

A sarcastic twist hit his voice with the false gratitude, alongside a sour sneer. The flush deepened on Malfoy's face and Harry clenched his fists in his robe pockets in preparation for a confrontation.

"You'll regret this, Potter." Malfoy snarled, taking a step forward threateningly with his goons cracking their knuckles behind him. threat clear and present, lighting a fire in Harry that he so desperately wanted to let loose.

But he had enough presence of mind to not turn to violence, instead plastering a thoughtful look upon his face with a somewhat loopy smirk,

"You sure do put a lot of hair gel on that head of yours. Looks like you care a lot about it…" Harry mused almost distractedly, eyes on said gel slathered head of hair before green locked onto blue again with a glare murderous, "Threaten me again and I'll set that precious hair of yours on fire."

Harry enjoyed how the boy's eyes nigh-comically widened in fear, his hands flying to his head as he leapt back out of Harry's personal space. Nearly flying into McGonagall, who had re-entered the room and behind him. A scowl causing the boy to wither further and the group of first years were ushered into the Great Hall without any further comments.

There was a lot of snickering and whispers as they walked in afterwards, Harry hearing his own name spoken plenty of times and blushing under Ron's hysterical laughter and praise.

Turning his head out of instinct his eyes caught the girl again, trailing off to the side on her own with a small, amused smile on her lips. She caught him staring much quicker this time but, instead of a confrontational scowl, she offered a grin that caused her pretty purple eyes to twinkle.

All Harry could do was turn his head away quickly in response before she saw his face burn as red as Ron's hair…

...

* * *

...

"Gryffindor!" Came the Sorting Hat's final announcement, bellowed at volume after his telepathic back and forth with the boy who's head he was resting upon after a full seven minutes of conversation and introspection.

The end of the Hatstall was met with applause and cheering so loud that it shook the plates and cutlery on the tables. The greatest of the four tables applause echoed from the Gryffindor table itself, the schools resident troublemakers going so far as to lead many of their housemates in cheers of,

"We got Potter." As he nervously stumbled over to the smiling and whooping Ron Weasley.

Harry's eyes briefly finding the Slytherin table as he looked away in embarrassment, immediately noting their more subdued 'celebration'. The majority of their expressions sour and very few offering even the smallest, politest claps.

A little while after the raucous applause and cheers had died down, Professor McGonagall called up the next name,

"Rowle, Delphini."

Harry softly noted that the pretty girl he'd been with all day (feeling a little guilty at the revelation that they hadn't shared more that two sentences in the entire afternoon) was called Delphini as she strode up to the jagged mouthed Sorting Hat with just as little confidence as the rest of them. Well except for Malfoy, who strutted up to the magical object as if his father had just bought the castle.

But Harry didn't like Malfoy so he decided to just use that arrogance as a reason to dislike him more.

A good few minutes of her gentle squirming and fidgeting lead to a smug cry of,

"Slytherin!" and quiet applause echoed hollowly off of the walls and starry ceiling as polite clapping echoed from the tables as plain disinterest flowed through the room as she shuffled and stepped towards her new houses table.

"Eugh! Another one?" Ron whined aloud lowly as he glared at the bowed head girl,  
"Huh?" Harry questioned in surprise at his sudden aggression,  
"A Slytherin, Harry. Another bloody Dark Witches."

Harry looked to her as she sat down, her eyes fell to her lap and Harry quickly noticed a few of their fellow housemates nodding and muttering in agreement of Ron's sentiments as the girl in question found her seat next to a girl with an unfortunate pug-like face.

Years of living with the Dursley's had really hammered in the ideology of, 'looks can be deceiving'. Although, in Harry's eyes, the trio that was his family were as hideous on the outside as they were within, they portrayed the image of a good and honest family whilst treating Harry like a slave and calling him a freak.

Thus, although he could admit (with rosy red cheeks) that this Delphini girl was very pretty and looked nice enough, if Slytherin house was the house of the dark wizards and witches (and the Sorting Hat had saw fit to place her there among them) then whoever she was beneath the surface was likely not worth knowing.

Harry watched her settle in at her politely clapping table for a time before looking away and forgetting that the girl even existed.

...

* * *

...

There was some kerfuffle up at the staff table near the end of the meal, the results of which was Hagrid excitedly beckoning Harry to follow him out of the Entrance Hall and to the dark grounds beyond. All of this as Professor McGonagal stood by the doors with a terse order to,

"Make it quick."

"She's gorgeous." Harry breathed as he looked upon her, stuffed into the roomy (for tiny him) cabin wedged between the dark lake they had travelled over and the, frankly, ominous woodland that stretched out around it. The boy left mesmerised at the fluffiness of her chest feathers, the span of her outstretched wings and the sharp awareness of her amber eyes.

A late birthday present (very late now, but not so much at the time) that Hagrid had been planning to get him when they were at the Alley together. Had Harry not surmised that Hagrid was entirely incapable of holding a grudge AND guilt tripping anyone, Harry would have called him handing over the female snowy owl as some sort of revenge for ditching him.

"Y-You got her for me?" he choked it out to Hagrid's beaming visage.

"Yeah, haven't given her a name yet, think she's been gettin sick of me anyway." He laughed a little shakily, particularly when said owl twisted her head around to him and levelled him with an imperious glower, "Anyway, I got yeh a cage for her and a mountain a treats, pretty much everythin you'll need to take care of 'er."

A large bag was dropped heavily at Harry's feet, the owl squawking at the sudden noise and appearance. All of of it culminating in some very quick goodbyes and a rushed promise to be back soon.

Yet something stopped him at the door, a wet dog nose prodding into his back when he paused before the night beyond the cabin,

"I have a question, Hagrid? You're in charge of the grounds and stuff right?" Harry turned back, absently rubbing at the hounds head as he Hagrid responded with a smile,

"Yup." He planted hands on his hips and smiled with a surprising amount of pride,

"Do you know someone called Junior?" Harry only then realising that that wasn't her name but what she said she allowed her friends to call her. Wondering why the sudden bout of curiosity had chosen then to rise up.

Then wondering why Hagrid crossed the room so quick with such a dark, horrified look upon his face...

"Where'd you hear that name?" His hand came down lightning fast to grip Harry's shoulders. Hard, "Yeh didn't got into Knockturn did ye?"  
"I needed books." Harry was wary in his dismissal, ploughing on when he sensed a lecture, "So, did she really grow up here, in that forest?"

He pointed to the woods, just beyond the cabin he was exiting. Hagrid's eyes flicking that way before falling back onto Harry with an expression he didn't recognise,

"Stay outta the forest, Harry." There was something so... firm about the way he looked and spoke in that moment.

"I wasn't going to- what's in there?" Harry looked from the forest back to the bearded face before him, "What's wrong with me meeting Junior?"  
"Don't matter Harry, you focus on yer studies an the castle, yeh don't need to be worryin about the forest or... _her_."

Disdain- no, that was loathing. Curled nostrils and an expression that spoke of utter revulsion when Hagrid pulled way from him. Harry's brow furrowed in irritation at the dismissal (cogs turning in his head with the most confusing of thoughts), but he was distracted quite completely by a pair of talons gently gripping his shoulder as the owl he'd been introduced to took a comfortable place there,

"Comfy?" He snorted, and she bobbed her head and hooted in clear affirmation. Harry left to stare in surprise at her as Hagrid snickered,

"Clever, ain't she?"

Harry nodded numbly, giggling a bit when the owl hooted in surprise as his shoulder moved, swatting him in the back of his head with a swift wing. Tentatively, his probing fingers stroked and ruffled her feathers and she quickly took to vocalising her pleasure. Harry was shooed away in a no-nonsense fashion by then and had no choice but to rush on back to the castle.

His eyes found no comfort in looking upon the dark trees. Stretching up tall enough to rival the not so distant towers, whilst clumped together so close Harry honestly wondered if it were even possible to slip past the thick trunks into the woodland within. A shudder ran the length of his spine as he rushed off back to the castle, grateful for the pursed lipped woman awaiting him for directing him up to the Gryffindor Common Room.

Images of that forest dominating that nights dreams, familiar red eyes peering out at him from between the leaves...

* * *

_**[Authors Note]**_

_**Hello again, thanks for the warm reception and I hope you've enjoyed this chapter and the ones before.**_

_**DRAGONDAVE45: HI! Nice to see you again (and I loved your fics btw). To answer your question I will be rewriting the original as that was my initial idea. However, unlike this one (which is still operating on the plot of the original) I'm revamping the original with pretty much an entirely new premise. **__**I'm still keeping my plan with the centaurs, if that's a dealbreaker, but it is quite a different looking story from what I originally planned and wrote.**_

_**Chosen-One-92: Hi there! Nice to see you here too, thanks. To answer you, I AM trying to make the story a lot more linear and work on slowing the pace a bit more and focussing a bit more on the characters day-to-day and build up character interactions a bit more organically. If you have anymore questions I'll happily answer a DM, but that is the basic idea.**_

_**CAD270895: Hey there, nice to see you again too! Thanks for the review and glad you liked it x**_

_**Thanks for reading and thanks for having me back, see you next chapter! x**_


	5. Chapter 5

A Wizards Life in Magical Academia _re:_

_Chapter 5__:_

**_Year 1_**

_'Hedwig likes my ears.' _Is what Harry would say to anyone, when she savaged them for winding her up.

A peck and/or a nip to the lope when her companion was winding her up and failing to appropriately dote on her. She was a needy bird, ever after the crispy rashers of bacon at breakfast (thus Harry quickly learning that whatever was on his plate was hers until she decided she didn't want it).

Honestly, the closest to pets Harry had ever had was the few spiders in the cupboard under the stairs. Though he only had them for a few weeks at a time (before Petunia would come at them with a broom and bug spray), but it was often enough time to name them and grow somewhat attached.

But Hedwig was, quite obviously, a different beast than a room of spiders. She carried herself like some sort of queen, looking down at everyone who dared look or approach. Except Harry, who she nuzzled herself into at every opportunity.

Professor Flitwick had quickly earned her ire via trying to convince Harry's little lady off of his shoulder during his lesson. Very fearfully returned to the front of the room when she screeched and had to be restrained when he whipped out his wand to carefully remove her.

And, though Harry had absoloutely NOTHING against the diminutive Professor, he did feel a lovely sense of adoration to her then, which only progressed through the week as (at his teachers instructions) he focussed on weaning the clingy bird from his shoulder and to the Owlery.

It took a week at Hogwarts, his first week at Hogwarts, and he was both wondering if he should count his new 'friendship' with the snowy owl (and what came with it) as a pro or con?

With the cons and pros put together, honestly, everything coalesced to be the first amazing week of Harry Potter's life.

Those pros? MAGIC!

Moving stairs, parchment and quills. Harry, looking through a few of his books, dubbed his new owl after an ancient witch called Hedwig (laughing at how the surprisingly affectionate and clingy bird puffed up in self-importance when he read her small biography in his history book) and engrossed himself in some of the interesting, if at times morbid, history of the word he now inhabited. The Statute of Secrecy (Harry got a little giggle at the creative work arounds for the witch hunts), Goblin Rebellions (far more interesting when not told through the dreary vein of Professor Binns voice) and more modern snapshots like the two Dark Lords of their century and the advancements of magic.

Harry often felt bad for blowing off Ron's whiny demands for games of chess and explorationof the castle for '_one more chapter', _but he was okay with being labelled a Ravenclaw in disguise for absorbing all he could of the magical world and then skipping off to the library to sneak a peak at the next volume.

In all fairness, he felt worse for focussing so much on the world's history (though he was unlikely to stop anytime soon) instead of reading through his, frankly just as fascinating, spell books and course material.

Though the Charms and Transfiguration lessons were the only ones that actually let him use his wand, Harry was able to actual FEEL the excitement in the wand between his fingers (that always hummed warmly whenever Harry put his hands on it) with every spell. And though turning a matchstick into a needle and making a feather hover a few inches above his desk wasn't that impressive, he LOVED it.

This was the_ 'freakishness' _his Aunt and Uncle tried to starve out of him, the freakish behaviour that estranged his parents from his relatives in the first place. A freakishness that was nothing less than intoxicating, leaving Harry to wonder when the funny feeling of rebellion would leave him at the thought of what they would say or think if they could see him now.

The cons, however, were the people...

Honestly, that may sound awful, but Harry's only issue with the school on his first week could only be the irritating few who somehow managed to sour the few times he took notice of them.

Malfoy, irritating, pompous and spiteful. An arrogant ponce who'd amassed a group of lackeys that guffawed at every sneering remark he made at everyone he passed.

Professor Snape, the less said about that spiteful man the better. Sallow faced, greasy hair and giving off the appearance of a giant man-bat, Harry wondered what on earth his problem was and why he held such a great disdain for him (and took so much pleasure in Neville's discomfort around him).

But, though they were just vile, the true downer was everyone elses reactions to him.

He couldn't walk through the school without hearing his name muttered by someone. Points, gasps, questions and awed comments under their breath (he was fairly certain the older student with the bubblegum pink mohawk had snapped pictures of him on his way out to Herbology on Wednesday). He felt like some sort of zoo exhibit.

And he hated it.

...

* * *

...

The Hogwarts school gates creaked shut behind him as Harry trekked along the path out of the school and towards his destination, the Hogsmeade train station. The dark trees of the Forbidden Forest ever on his left as he briskly strode along the winding path off and away from the Hogwart's grounds.

A comforting scent of damp permeated Harry's nose as he squelched across a path buried in drenched, fallen leaves. Accompanied by the huff and other excitable noises of the enormous, black boarhound who was happily escorting the teensy eleven year old to the train station.

"Hehe, don't run Fang, I can't keep up!" Harry called after the bounding dog after he nearly slipped onto his face.

That Sunday morning had risen with a warm sun, the first years lying in, not out of laziness, but to catch up on sleep they lost from their midnight Astronomy lesson. Stargazing until 1AM before the dismissal back to their dorms, Harry still dragging himself from the warm cocoon of his quilts and blankets long before his dormmates and trekking towards the schools gates before he saw anyone he recognised. A soft spring in his step despite the fact he was leaving a place he (alarmingly quickly) was associating with home, to go to work.

One of the many reasons that Harry's first impression of Professor Snape was... less than stellar, was how he'd honestly left him worried that he wouldn't be able to properly care for Hedwig and owl order anything else he needed for school (such as quills and parchment).

This worry manifesting from the first lesson in the dungeons where Professor Snape scathingly gave the room an obnoxious twelve foot essay on the _'Efficacy of Anti-Venoms'. _Some sort of punishment for Harry not knowing what a bezoar was or where to find it... very much burning into the stores of parhcment Harry needed to last for the next few months.

If a teacher could announce such a ridiculous homework task without recourse, Harry very much worried how long the smattering of coins he had left from the summer would REALLY last.

Leading to the first letter he'd ever sent with his beautiful bird, sent all the way to Diagon Alley to the magnanimous Florean Fortescue, an update on his first week of school with another impassioned request for the man's assistance...

Eventually he left the dog to bound back up to the school; once they got to the station. Harry waving the Great Dane off until it was gone from sight, then spinning on his heels and following the instructions he had been issued. Offering up a trio of Sickles to the dazed, bleary eyed blonde behind the ticket desk and scurrying to the familiar scarlet train, missing about half of the carriages it had had when it picked them up from London.

Quickly slipping into a seat in a compartment with a silvery blonde man (his head buried in an upside down magazine), the two not making eye contact or sharing any speech, just waiting as the whistle blew out its last call and began chugging along the instant the clock changed to quarter to.

It pulled away slowly, inching along the tracks at a snails pace that VERY quickly advanced into a blistering speed. An uncomfortable feeling of vertigo at the increased velocity. Trees and countryside rushed past the window faster and faster before finally...

**_BANG!_**

Harry had been warned, he'd been told to prepare himself, hold on tight and (if possible) cover his ears.

He did none of that, thus he was hurled from his seat and left wincing as the nasally voiced conductor over the intercom announced:

"THAT WAS THE THREE FOURTY-FIVE HIGH SPEED SERVICE TO... LONDON KINGS CROSS."

Harry was left the grumble upon leaving the train and wondered why on Earth he couldn't just Floo directly to the Leaky Cauldron instead of-

He threw a dirty look at the scarlet steam train.

-that...

He stepped into one of the burning green fires and staggered out into the smoky pub that marked the entrance to Diagon Alley. Greeted near immediately by a baffled male voice,

"Hey Harry, that you?!" A balding man behind the counter, aged and with visible dimples,  
"Hi Tom!" Harry was cheery in his reply, "Busy day?"

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts?" The innkeeper leaned a little over the counter, ignoring the surprised mutterings of the other patrons who surreptitiously pointed at the arriving Boy Who Lived,

"Still got to make a living, Tom." Harry pinched the collar of his work shirt and dragged it up so the man could see it without Harry needing to take off his coat. The boy scurrying off to the back to open up the alley before Tom could say anything further (or that weird, cloaked customer in the corner could finish getting up and come his way).

A jog turned into a sprint and Harry blitzed into the Ice Cream Parlour with a cherubic smile, void of customers and with Florean and a redheaded boy he didn't recognise behind the counter.

"Evening!" Harry grinned, waving as he lifted up the section of the counter to let himself in,

"Hello Harry." Florean smiled down at the boy, ruffling a hand through his own shaggy black hair as the unfamiliar ginger looked down on him in surprise, "You okay?"  
"Yeah, the train was a bit of a pain, but I'm good." He slipped out of his coat and leaned around the backroom door to slip it onto a coat hook, turning back to the duo of taller young men with his smile still present upon his face, "Thanks again for letting me come down."  
"I suppose I should thank you. William does need a bit of support in the backroom every once in a while."  
"Just Bill please, Mr Fortescue." The dubbed Bill smiled over at the man before turning to Harry with a smile and offered his hand, "Nice to meet-cha, Harry."  
They shook hands and Harry returned the gesture as he took him in. Tall and near reed thin, square jawed with his long lustrous orange hair tied back in a stylish ponytail. There was something familiar about his face, particularly those hazel eyes and pale freckles over his nose, but Harry kept that to himself as he and Bill were instructed on what they were to be up to. Harry eventually stepping into the back whilst Bill turned to the door as a trio of young women entered in dark robes with the Ministry's insignia emblazoned on their chests.

"Thank you again, Mr Fortescue." Harry cheerily intoned to his boss's head shake and dismissive hand wave,

"During school time I'm not giving you any more than two shifts a week. You need to study, you hear?" Arms folded as his dark eyes awaited the vigorous nod and grateful grin of his charge. Allowing himself a small smile himself before another inquisitive look settled on his stern face, "And you have made sure the school is okay with this?"

"The school rules state that a student can come and go with the permission of staff members and their guardians." Harry smiled up at Florean as he slipped the aforementioned permission slip from his pocket into Fortescue's hands. The man very slowly signing it after he carefully didn't comment further, instead allowing Harry to cheerily slip into his apron and begin tackling the mountain of dishes in the backroom sink.

Harry had of course read said rules in _'Hogwarts: A History'_ as well as cross referencing it with hefty document pinned to Filch's door. Leading to a sweet talking tea time with Hagrid to get his signature on a slip he'd pilfered from Filch's office.

Thus, allowing Harry to quietly slip out of the castle grounds and into Hogsmeade that Sunday night, instead of spell- checking his Potions essay, smirking to himself in quiet victory...

...

* * *

...

Monday morning, another first period spent in the potions lab, a group of grumbling students flooding from the room after the bell (and their sneering Professor) dismissed them...

The door was slammed behind the exiting cloud of Gryffindor's and Slytherin's as they marched out and towards the upper floors of the castle, shadows criss-crossing across the floors from torches in brackets placed too intermittently. Little light shone upon the dark stone corridors.

"You lost us 15 points." Harry was met with a quiet glower from a bushy haired brunette in the same Gryffindor themed robes as him. Her arms were folded over her chest (where she also had a book pressed there), "Why can't you just sit quietly and not antagonise Professor Snape?"  
Harry, in a foul mood from said Professor was quick to spin around to snap at her, stopped by a scathing,

"Forget her." From Seamus Finngean as the dark haired boy and Ron dragged him ahead and out of earshot,  
"What's the matter, you can easily earn them back?" A girl with a pretty smile and much tamer brown hair that was so long she could sit on it, already walking beside the girl who huffed at the boys backs,

"We're still at a loss either way, and I shouldn't have to pick up the slack for stupid boys who can't follow the rules."

She raised her voice as if hoping the boys would hear her, but Harry didn't even flinch at the volume of her half-shout.

"But, you've got to admit, Professor Snape was being really unfair in class today." the same girl again, Lavender Brown (Harry eventually remembered),  
"He's a teacher and that is his classroom. If those are his rules and a student doesn't obey them then of course they deserve to be punished." Hermione Granger sniffed, missing the shared look between Lavender and their dark skinned room mate who was re-braiding her hair and throwing side-long glares at the imperious looking girl.

The girl only quieted down when Parvati Patil finished up with her hair, snatched up the politely listening Lavender and stormed off faster than Hermione seemed willing to run, the girl shuffling along in their wake after a heartbroken expression Harry didn't see as he and Seamus curiously asked questions about Quidditch to Ron (the boy espousing said sports superiority to football).

Late but in better spirits, the first year Gryffindor's slotted themselves into their Transfiguration classroom alongside the already seated blue and bronze Ravenclaws, given the tersest of looks before McGonagall simply carried on with her lesson.

The lecture lasted about half the lesson, met with a few tentative questions from Hermione and the Ravenclaws

Until just as they were settling into the practical portion of their class, Harry finally raised his hand, a somewhat pained confusion on his face,

"Professor, do we _have_ to use our wands?"

Her head cocked to the side, a gesture that Harry thought (absently) was distinctly feline in its imagery,

"I'm afraid I don't understand the question?" She inquired slowly and Harry hummed to himself before trying again,

"I mean, do we learn how to do the spell without it? I'm pretty comfortable doing the spell with my wand and wondered if we were going to learn it without it. Sorry for being unclear." Harry seemed a little sheepish in his response, though he shrunk in on himself a little when levelled with stares that ranged from curious to near-scandalised.

"Mr Potter, I don't know if you've been told this but you do need your wand to cast spells. There is no exception, or learning to cast it without magic." A small smattering of sniggers filled the room, drawing a red cheeked scowl from the Boy Who Lived,

"Professor?" Parvati, nestled between Lavender and a girl from Ravenclaw, who was her double, "Pad and I have done magic before we got a wand."  
Parvati spoke with a nervous quiver in her voice, one absent from her twin Padma's,

"Yeah, we turned our Aunt's sari into bats!"

"That was just accidental magic, Miss Patil." Her tone was heavily dismissive but it seemingly satisfied the room. All but one,

"Well, is it entirely impossible to do magic without your wand?" Harry inquired furhter despite the mutters and hums of satisfaction at the answer, met with a small huff at his side before the teacher could reply,

"You're holding up the lesson." Hermione snapped, arms folded as she shot him a dirty sideways glance from the otherside of Ron. Ron being the one to pipe up in Harry's defence,

"Bugger off, Hermione. It's a good question."

"It is indeed a good question, however Mr Weasley, do _not_ speak to your fellow students like that." McGonagall cut in with a severe tone, squashing the budding argument they had been seconds away from. She folded her hands behind her back before levelling an unreadable look at Harry once again,

"I suppose, with magic, anything IS possible." McGonagall hummed out her words before her look morphed into a seemingly amused expression, "By all means, Mr Potter, do give it a try."

And the whole class was paused as she held his gaze. Eyebrows raised as she peered over her glasses at him, encouraging him on with the whole class watching as he attempted again and again to transfigure the item before him with his bare hands. Enunciating the spell carefully and eventually mimicking the wand movement with his right hand, growing steadily more frustrated when the thing didn't even flinch.

With a sigh he rummaged in his pocket (ignoring the gentle heat that rose up his arm upon making contact with the holly wood) whipping out his wand and just turning it into a needle with his wand. Glaring at the self-satisfied grin on Professor McGonagall's face as she moved to assist the struggling Neville.

Harry turned his glare down at the needle on the desk before him, it had been a matchstick before and he was irritated at its very existence.

The first lesson he had learned at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in his first class of Transfiguration, was not the spell to morph a matchstick into a silver needle, it was the apparent contradictory nature of magic.

_'I don't get accidental magic.'_ A defeated thought after Professor McGonagall slinked over, observed his needle with a critical eye and congratulated him for his successful action of turning it into a needle, back into a match and into a needle again. A feat the bushy haired girl next to him was still struggling with, even though she had turned the matchstick into a needle on her first attempt last week (whilst Harry had taken about five).

"Is there an issue, Mr Potter?" A gentle question from the stern educator at the lack of response Harry gave,

"I'm still just confused as to why we NEED a wand to do spells?" Her ears did hear a few mutters that affirmed his thought process from a few of the classes assembled Ravenclaws and even Miss Granger (who looked utterly scandalised at Harry's earlier challenge to their teacher),

"Perhaps we can have a word after class?" It was posed as a question of course, but delivered with a certain level of expectation that Harry didn't feel like it was possible for him to say no. Thus when the bell rang for breaktime Harry packed up his books and moved to the front of the classroom instead of with Ron out of the room.

Harry was blunt when he breezed up to her desk,  
"You said that it's not possible to do the spell without my wand?" the Scotswoman quirking an eyebrow at him before responding,

"And did you see that to be the case?" She nodded sagely, Harry's teeth clenching a bit at the politely disguised snark, having referred to Harry pitiful efforts before giving in. "I believe the results speak for themselves."

Harry scoffed, clenching his fists at his side before hitting her with a look of loathing she actually drew back from,

"If you don't know how to teach it without a wand, then fine. But don't-"

"Mr Potter!"  
"No, Professor." He snapped his interruption, McGonagall near flying out of her seat with her vehement reply before Harry's blitzed onwards, "I'm not being mocked for trying something when you haven't explained why I can't do it."

Her lips as thin as a pencil line on her face, stormy gaze very slowly mellowing into a disapproving, stony look,

"You are frustrated, that is understandable. I apologise if you believe I was making some sort of joke at your expense." Her reply was slow, the woman very clearly picking out each one of her words, "But that does NOT allow you the right to speak to me in such a manner. I am an adult and your Professor and you will be respectful."

He muttered an apology, she seemingly let it go.

"I'm just confused as to why we _need_ the wand? I mean, I've done magic without one before and so has pretty much everyone, I just don't get it." Harry continued with a softer tone, though a cold bite was present in his words that McGonogall did not call attention to.

"Perhaps it would be best if you described what it is you did before?"

"Before?"  
"Your accidental magic, Mr Potter. Take a seat," Her wand yanked a chair from one of the vacated desks, "and have a think about what you have done with magic before now."

He did as he was told,

"Well, I remember I changed my teacher's hair to blue. Erm... my Aunt cut all my hair off but I grew it back by the next morning and I teleported onto the school roof when I was being chased." Eyes downcast in thought and thus missing the brief, sour expression in her pursed lips before McGonagall made to answer her students questions,

"Colour changing charms are more Professor Flitwick's expertise. I do believe that they are something you will learn either this year or next." She sniffed a bit imperiously before fixing Harry with a cool look, "I'm certain I don't have to tell you to refrain from attempting a repeat performance on myself or my colleagues."

Harry blinked, the thought having never crossed his mind, before a cheeky grin blossomed on his face and he was threatened with the docking of House Points to have it removed,

"On to your second, regrowing your hair at such an alarming speed is more my expertise. Being a Transfiguration related feat." Her students eyes widened (hands actually rising to touch the curly, scruffy mass atop his scalp), "That is an interesting feat, as wandless self-manipulation is a skill usually attributed to metamorphmagi?"  
"What are... I'm not going to try and pronounce that." Harry tone and face falling flat and the ghost of a smirk tugged at a corner of McGonagall's lips,

"A metamorphmagus is a human born with the ability to transfigure portions of, or the entirety, of their body. Perfomed without the use of their wand."

"That's... that's pretty cool." Harry all but whispered out his astonished admiration, missing the smile McGonagall that rose up on McGonagall's face,

"It is indeed quite fascinating." The teacher's tone transitioning to an almost lament when she continued, "It is also, unfortunately, a hereditary ability. Thus you cannot learn how to become a metamorphmagus."

He frowned, she bulldozed on in the face of it,

"And, your last one." She straightened somewhat in her seat and levelled him with a severe look, "Apparition is not an uncommon feat of underage magic. There are many stories of babies and children popping short distances to loved ones in stressful situations. It is also, commonly, performed without a wand."

As an afterthought, McGonagall inquired further,

"I'd say... maybe two storeys tall." Harry answered her question a bit absently,

"Hmm, remarkable." McGonagall nodded, "Apparition is a regulated skill, requiring a license via the Ministry in order to perform. Thus, again, I expect you to refrain from attempting it again."

Something clicked in Harry's head,

"Wait, so magic without a wand ISN'T impossible."

"I never said it is impossible. With magic, it is believed that nothing is impossible."  
"This... hasn't helped." Harry blushed despite himself, big eyes locked onto his Head of House with a truly lost expression, "I don't get why we have to use our wands to do magic when this accidental magic can be done without it."

"Accidental magic is when a young wizard or witch performs involuntary feats of magic in response to stress or extenuating emotional stimuli." She paused and was pleased to see he was still following, "There is a heavy emphasis on the involuntary part of that sentence."

He nodded, he seemed to understand, but the stubborn and determined look behind his eyes did not abate in the slightest,

"I just think... if I could do it without a wand before Hogwarts I should be able to do it now."

"Which is why I encouraged you to give it an attempt." To Harry's ears, Professor McGonagall sounded surprisingly earnest in her sentence, leaning forward somewhat as she continued, "You are correct, I don't know how to teach wandless magic, neither does any Professor teaching at this school. Most skills that may fall under wandless magic are hereditary, thus if you know them they cannot be taught."

She hummed a bit to herself, shaking her head as a war of thoughts visibly took place on her face. Eventually leading her to lean back and begin rummaging in her desk drawer. Nearly a full minute passed before her delicate hand pulled out a paperback volume about as thick as a brick, sliding the tome across the table to a bewildered eleven year old. He was met with an expectant look and the boy picked it up.

Upon flipping it over a very familiar old man stared up at him from his spot next to the blurb, eyes twinkling from behind half-moon spectacles,

_'Magic: From Theory to Practice by A.P.W.B. Dumbledore' _He quietly read the title aloud before it clicked in his head,

"The Headmaster wrote this?" Harry muttered out his question and McGonagall pounced on it with an oddly prideful tone,

"Of course, the Headmaster is a VERY accomplished academic, thus why he resides as this schools Headmaster." She turned her attention from Harry's face to the book in his grasp, "He is very well known for his discoveries in many fields of magic, magical theory being one of them."  
"Are you telling me to read this?" He got a nod and a satisfied smile from his Professor, he frowned a little bit, "I already have a magical theory book, what's the difference?"

"Indeed you do. A book you will need to both read and understand completely in order to begin to fathom the contents of this one."

McGonagall finally retook her seat, tapping nails crisply against the wooden surface of her desk,

"You were incredibly impertinent, and I would usually levy detention for such an outburst." Harry felt his cheeks burning under her glare as she continued, "But instead, I will offer you an alternative. You may borrow this book and read through it. You will then write me a foot long report on your findings, in regards to wandless magic, when you return it to me on the first of November."

And Harry was left silently cursing himself for the extra work he'd gotten himself after he was summarily dismissed.

Dreary and blustery with arching ceilings and suits of armour lining the walls, the morning sun weakly cast through the tall castle windows. A smattering of older (and unfamiliar) students were walking about and Harry fiddled with the strap of his threadbare backpack.

Harry hadn't expected Ron to wait for him, he was nice enough but had a very short attention span, apparently. Honestly, Harry thought he'd sat out there waiting before getting bored and scurrying along to their next class.

And he was correct, the redhead was not awaiting him after he slipped out and closed the door behind him, instead Hermione Granger stood with a small scowl against the opposite wall, perking up at the sight of him in a way Harry felt foreshadowed trouble.

She crossed the corridor to him with folded arms and Harry did his darnedest to remain civil,

"Oh. Hermione, right?" He tested the name on his tongue, wondering if it was spoken correctly. He very much wondered as she met his 'greeting' with small scowl,

"Do you enjoy antagonising all the teachers?!"  
One of the first words spoken to him from the girl since she'd barged into their compartment, hands on her hips now as they were then and a face that screamed both disappointment and derision,

"Excuse me?" Harry stammered out,

"People are going to hate you if you keep losing points and getting in trouble." She huffed and made to turn and walk away, nose turned up somewhat as if she were somehow victorious. As soon as that thought crossed his mind Harry's mouth was open, not at all allowing that to stand,

"W-What, how they like you?" Harry scoffed, the words slamming past his lips before even the slightest filter or second thought could get in their way, "The only teacher I've lost points to is Snape and... lo and behold, so did you. And Seamus. And Neville. You '_insufferable know-it-all.'_"

She stopped dead, stiff as a board and mid-step when Harry's sharp words found her ears. Harry had her attention, and went in for the kill as he started walking,

"I asked Professor McGonagall a question, a question anyone should have asked on day one." Harry folded his arms with a glower, "Don't get mad at me just because you were too dumb to think of it."  
"I am NOT dumb." She seethed, near snarling at him through gritted teeth and almost making Harry falter. But his blood was running hot and he couldn't help himself, he knew he was under her skin after all. Involuntarily, he kept going with a scoff,

"Do you stop everyone who doesn't worship the teachers and actually feels human emotions?" He stormed off past her and made to not look back, "No wonder no one likes you."

A nasty feeling VERY QUICKLY settling in his stomach, not even giving him a second before the realisation that he'd gone too far.

When he looked back she wasn't coming his way towards the stairs, she was running in the opposite direction.

...

* * *

...

_**[Authors Note]**_

_**H I !**_

_**Thanks for reading the chapter and hope y'all enjoyed it.**_

_**Shiza Riku: I'm planning to of course, I hope you stick around till then. Thanks for reading.**_

_**And thanks for the Review Innortal and thanks for Reviewing again CAD270895 and DRAGONDAVE45. See you in the next chapter guys and thanks for all the support thus far, it is really appreciated x**_


	6. Chapter 6

A Wizards Life in Magical Academia _re:_

_Chapter 6__:_

**_Year 1_**

_"...you insufferable know it all."_

_"No wonder no one likes you."_

Ink up her hands, tears teetering in her bright brown eyes, Hermione Granger sniffed and blinked hard as her quill hovered over the parchment. A drop of black ink, one by one, further staining the surface as she just let it hang.

Her teachers liked her work, the Outstanding grade a great indication of the quality of her work that they were acknowledging as worthy. However Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick looked weary after the first hour lesson they'd had with her, the rest a little better at hiding it but not entirely keeping it from their faces. The tired look whenever they saw her raised hand, the growing reluctance when they asked if there were any questions, the moderate insistence on her leaving when she stayed after class...

She, in a way, respected Professor Snape for his vitriolic reply to her eagerness to perform.

_"...you insufferable know it all."_ At least he was honest. Telling her what her teachers REALLY thought of her.

Lavender and Parvati didn't make the effort to talk to her anymore, two weeks in and their responses were strained and Parvati was always quick to lead Lavender away as soon as possible...

_"No wonder no one likes you."_ She respected Harry too, in a way. Telling her what she needed to hear.

Disheartened, upset but determined to not let herself fall any further into despair, Hermione plastered a smile onto her lips and retrieved a new roll of parchment. She hoped her letter showed her love and resolve to her mother and father and hoped that they wouldn't worry anymore than they had when they'd waved her off.

She hoped they could feel her smile through her words, even if she didn't quite feel it herself yet.

...

* * *

...

Neville Longbottom sniffled and winced as he cradled his arm as he was soothingly lead along by their Broom flying instructor, Madam Hooch. Friday afternoon on the castle lawn meaning the first years first flyng lesson, which looked to be ending prematurely after dumpy Neville Longbottom managed to fly up in the air after mounting his broom and subsequently tumbling to the floor feet beneath him.

A perfect start to their first flying lesson of the year.

The Hufflepuff's and Ravenclaw's had been gushing about brooms and Quidditch all week after their session with Madam Hooch the previous week, so the expectation that settled on to the rest of the first years was nigh insurmountable. Malfoy had spent his time onto the fields bragging about out-flying a helicopter, Ron gushed about practising with his brothers.

The broom lunged into Harry's hand before he could even shout 'UP!', met with a glower from Hermione when hers actually rolled away.

They mounted with some shared level of enthusiasm and apprehension.

Then Neville had careened off into the air, snapped his wrist and the class was left to their own devices as Madam Hooch lead him to the Hospital Wing. It was as Harry (as the class dissolved into chatting and gossip) was realising that he didn't actually know where the Hospital Wing even was that his attention was brought to a familiar sight over by the commotion that was the Slytherin's,

"Give it back, Malfoy." Harry demanded with narrowed eyes as he overheard and saw Malfoy throwing scathing insults towards Neville's retreating back whilst tossing the boys red Remembrall up and down in uncaring hands. The blonde was surrounded by his jeering fellows when Harry stalked over alone. Malfoy turning to Harry in momentary surprise before his expression curled up in a foul sneer,

"Aww, sticking up for the squib, Potter?"

Words were tossed back and forth with escalating venom and scathing and the class soon surrounded the arguing duo. All culminating in Malfoy offering a smirking remark,

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for him to find." Malfoy mounting his broom and rising up into the air as he spoke, "How about the roof?"

He dangled the glass orb at arms length with a toothy grin under the murderous glare of the boy he was taunting and turned to his own housemates with an aggressive cheer. Though his grin faltered under a series of unimpressed scowls, one of which from a purple eyed girl who had crossed her arms and had begun to shake her head in disappointment.

"What's your problem, Rowle?" his question held an undertone of loathing as he sneered at the girl in question, drawing all attention to her as Malfoy looked down upon her. Black hair tied back in a tight ponytail as cold amethyst found his cool blue,

"I'd recommend against flying, Malfoy." Delphini Rowle drawled out dismissively, as if the warning she was given was quite the bother to even articulate. Her addition to the situation evidently not welcome when the platinum blond scowled at her and she glared in reply, "Hooch'll have you banned, if you don't fall off and snap your neck first."

"Nonsense, Rowle." Malfoy puffed out his chest as he settled into a float a few feet above the ground, "But if you're worried about me…"

"Hardly, more worried about the mess I might accidentally step in when your arrogant self falls off without a Professor, or your _precious_ father here to catch you."

Some quiet snickers accompanied her words whilst Malfoy flushed in defiant anger. His mouth opened in a forming retort but snapped shut as he chose to simply pull up and further into the sky,

"How troublesome." She mused aloud as he took to the air and looked Harry's way with a raised eyebrow, "Let me guess, you're going to be a fool as well and join him?"

Harry flushed from her words then glared angrily in her direction,

"I'm going to help my friend, it's perfectly normal to risk detention to deal with bullies." Harry scowled as he spoke, noting a miniscule flinch before she scoffed herself, "Not that you'd know from your end I'm sure."

"You don't need to explain yourself to me, Potter. Go up there, fall off your broom in your inexperience and break every bone in your body. I'll be watching." She grinned a sadistic toothy grin that actually caused a shiver of fear up his back and made Harry drag his eyes away from her piercing purple ones. Harry wondering how she hid a look like that on the train,

"I'll be shoving that Remembrall in your face when I get it back." Harry scathingly muttered to himself as he threw his own leg over the broom and viciously kicked off the ground, ignoring Hermione Granger's worried insistence that he shouldn't. Shuddering in the air and nearly falling off when he rocketed up into the sky much faster and harsher than he could have imagined.

A series of miraculous feats in the air saw Harry hopping off of the school broom and onto jelly legs, as he levelled out from a near expertly executed, fifty-foot dive, Neville Longbottom's Remembrall in hand. Several cheers meeting his successful landing as Malfoy hopped off of his own broom in scowling disbelief much later,

"You could have both been killed!" Was the grating scolding of Hermione Granger, the first of his housemates to reach him as the Gryffindor's ran over,

"That's Quidditch for you, Granger." Came Ron with an ear to ear grin, "The fun's in the danger."  
"That was wicked, Harry!" Seamus declared with a matching smile and big bright eyes, "You should definitely try out for the team next year, you'll be on there for sure."

Harry's embarrassed blush was wiped from his face when he paled, seeing the tall pointed hat wearing Head of Gryffindor House marching towards them from behind the assembled student. His eyes catching the smug grin from the corner of his eye that lit up Draco Malfoy's face,

"With me, Mr Potter." Professor McGonagall ordered in a severe tone that had the Gryffindor's parting like the Red Sea in subdued and fearful shuffle, leaving Harry Potter open to her harsh hazel glare as he himself shuffled up towards her and followed wordlessly as she turned towards the castle.

Their silent march took them up two flights of stairs to a class being taught by the ever stuttering Professor Quirrel. The turban toting Defense Against the Dark Art's professor levelling a brief, piercing stare at Harry (causing a quick flame of irritating pain to blossom in his lightning bolt scar) as McGonagall asked for Wood, before making a gesture to the doorway that she stood in.

"This is Oliver Wood, the Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team." His Transfiguration professor pointed to the bemused older student who looked between the two of them with a curious gaze, "I would like to introduce you Harry Potter, I believe I've found you your new Seeker."

Harry looked to his professor in confusion,

"Wh-What is a Seeker?"  
"Nice to meet you Harry, I'm Oliver." Oliver Wood held out his hand and Harry responded with a handshake and greeting, "And a Seeker, my young friend, is a position in a Quidditch team. They are responsible for catching the Golden Snitch and ending the game."

"Now, I am not sure when you've planed your sessions, but you'll be expected to keep up you're your studies whilst you attend training."

"Wha- wait. Don't I get a say in this?"  
"I'm… sorry?"  
"I-I can't afford to be taking on something else right now. I'm barely juggling work and my homework as it is. Piling on Quidditch trainings and matches isn't fair."

Both of them mouthed out the word 'work' but didn't focus on it, Harry was grateful for that fact,

"You have a natural gift, Harry. I believe you could be one of the very best fliers the world has ever seen." Professor McGonagall decreed in a clipped but earnest declaration that caused funny palpitations in Harry's chest, "A place on the house team is the perfect place for you to spring board into stardom Harry."

Harry winced, the idea of stardom (after nearly three months of living with being The Boy Who Lived) utterly repulsive.

"Not to mention that we haven't won the cup for a very long time." Oliver's expression was pained as he spoke, Harry's own face mirroring his as he replied,

"I'm really sorry Oliver Wood, Professor McGonagall." He apologized with a pained expression, flinching and almost caving under their devastated looks, "I understand Quidditch means a lot to you, but I have to focus on staying alive, which means my priorities have to come first."

With a few awkward seconds of silence having passed Harry quietly made his exit, turning back the way he had come to leave.

"Hey, Harry." Oliver called from the classroom door and Harry turned back to him reluctantly,

"When you've settled in and've got your stuff sorted, I want you to give it some thought, ok?" He continued once he got Harry's attention, McGonagall was already striding away in the opposite direction, but Wood was smiling a patient and warm smile in his direction, "If you're half as good as Professor McGonagall is leading me to believe, then you'll be a perfect and an **_invaluable_** fit."

Harry paused before nodding his compliance and walked off without further comment. A little smile of his own lighting up his face.

...

* * *

...

In hindsight, the two boys should have realised that when Draco Malfoy had challenged Harry to a duel, he: A. Had no intention of turning up and B. Would find some way to get _them_ in trouble instead of him.

Dinner had met Harry with a swell of mutters when he slid into his usual place next to a still excitable Ron who was still buzzing about the events of their lesson and a ripple of disbelief was present across the table when Harry revealed he DIDN'T get detention or banned for life.

Marching up to the Gryffindor table, goons at each shoulder, Draco Malfoy again. Face flushed and nostrils flared, Harry could see the bruise on the boys ego even now, hours later and in the dark halls of Hogwarts castle.

Harry and Ron silently embodied the Muggle term of: hindsight is 20:20 as they bolted from the schools armoury, fleeing the gasping snarling calls of the schools very own Argus Filch. Neither of them willing to risk detention,

"I'm going to hex off Malfoy's skin when I get ahold of him."

"Just keep running."

"To where? Filch knows this school much better than we do."  
"We need to get far enough ahead of him to lose him, then hide somewhere to wait for him to pass." Harry gasped out as he grabbed the wrist of his trailing companion and dragged him around a corner and bolted down the new corridor. No longer seeing the glint of Filch's lantern in the reflection of his glasses.

"In here." Ron hissed, dragging Harry aside and into the first classroom he saw as soon as they rounded the corner. The two stumbling and falling in with Harry kicking the door closed behind them.

"Get out." They heard an order, the two turning from the door and finding themselves at wandpoint. The two's hands raised in surrender as the girl in the Slytherin robes stared them down.

"Rowle?" Ron questioned with a raised brow, her purple eyes narrowing in the candlelit room at being addressed,

"Shut up, or I'll call for Filch." Delphini Rowle snarled aggressively,

"And get in as much trouble with him for being out as we are?" Harry asked lowly, she flinched, "Exactly, no you won't."

"Yeah, p-put your wand down." Ron butted in,

"I'll still hex you, so don't push it, Weasley." Delphi snarled, jabbing her wand at the red head as a cruel smirk morphed her features, "I learned the silencing charm the other day, I'll blow your balls off and no one will even hear a whisper out of you."

"Just. Put your wand down." Harry's own wand had been raised at the threat and the two locked gazes. A silent agreement to both put there wands back into their robes pockets took place and was acted upon.

"Harry, we should find somewhere else to hide." Ron pleaded with a worried look shot to the quietly glaring Slytherin girl,

"I don't know where Filch is Ron. It's not safe to go out of here just yet. We need to just stick with it and stay in here." Harry placated with a look between Delphi and Ron,

"I wasn't aware I was such terrible company." Delphi drawled in mock hurt as she stepped back and sat down on an unused desk,

"Well, you are a Snake." Ron spat, and Delphi raised her brow at his comment,

"So?" She snapped, "You didn't have that problem on the train, did ya?"  
Ron glowered but Harry flinched, she saw this and she latched onto that with a long, searching look in the boys direction,  
"We didn't know any better, did we?" Ron's smug sneer rolled onto his face, not seeing the sidelong glare he got from Harry, "You spend all day with the scum of the scum, thinking they're good company."

Delphi's practised bored expression turned unimpressed,

"If you think that I enjoy hanging around those buffoons then you are dumber than they are." She glared and folded her arms in clear irritation.

"So why do you?" Harry asked, wincing when her loathsome gaze fell onto him once more,

"Because of people like him, treating us like we're evil just because we were sorted into Slytherin."

"It's not like you've proven that you aren't."

"How has she proven us she has?"

Betrayed, Ron turned to Harry without a shred of comprehension,

"Whose side are you on?"  
"Look Ron, I should have said this on day one, but I don't understand how every member of Slytherin is evil just because a few dark wizards came out of their house."  
"It's not some of them Harry. It's all of them!"  
"Merlin was a Slytherin." Delphini softly stated, almost bashful.

"What?!" The boys exclaimed in unison before being shushed. The trio stood in silence, heartbeats in their ears, awaiting the sound of Filch coming for them like some sort of shark to blood. Eventually finding the boys turning to the girl who reached into a book bag by her feet and leisurely hurled a book their way. Harry plucking it from the air and Ron taking a peek over his shoulder.

"Page 394." She trilled in an uncharacteristically cheery tone,

"What is this?" Ron asked scathingly, as Harry turned the tome in his hands, a disgusted gaze on the gingers face,

"_Hogwarts: A History_, you utter dunce." Her cheeriness vanished,

"It's just talking about werewolves and stuff." Harry murmured as he surveyed the page with a confused expression,

"Wait, I mean 384."

"Idiot." Ron spat out,

"OI!" She replied,

"SHH!" Harry glared at the two, whose faces turned pink at the reprimand, until they looked appropriately guilty before looking down at the book in question and murmuring the 'Lumos' spell for a bit more-light, "Yeah, she's right Ron. Merlin was a Slytherin."

"Give it 'ere." He scowled and snatched the book from him. Glaring down at the passage before his eyes widened and he somewhat blanched, "Bloody hell."

"Apology accepted."

"Sorry for doubting you, I guess." Harry shrugged at Delphini's sarcastic response, the girl in question rolling her eyes and slipping off of her desk.

"Yeah, whatever." She murmured and slung her bag onto her back and held out her arm, Harry quickly slipping the book from his friends grasp and stepping over to return it to her, "Thanks, I guess."

"Not doing yourself any favours there, Delphini."  
"On first name basis now, Harry." Harry winced, "Guess not."

"Fine, Rowle. But the point stands that if you are adamantly against Slytherin's negative reputation, carrying yourself in such a way is not proving anyone any better."

"Surprised you could string together such an eloquent sentence."

"FORGET IT THEN!" Harry surprised her as he threw up his hands and turned to leave, Slipping over to the door with Ron in tow, "Night, Rowle."

They slipped out into the corridor before immediately hurling themselves back in when a lantern bobbed into view from the end of the corridor,

"HOW IS HE STILL HERE?!" Ron hissed with his back against the door,

"This way idiots. Unless you want to be caught." Delphini hissed, the pair turning to see her holding up a tapestry located behind the teacher's desk at the end of the classroom, crouched in a small passageway behind the fabric and jerking her head to get them to follow her.

They looked to the shaking doorknob, then to Delphini behind the tapestry and bolted. Leaping into the space and letting the tapestry flap back into place. The area was wide enough to allow two of them to stand side-by-side but was engulfed in inky darkness with an icy breeze slicing through from both ends. They stared back at where they had come from before scurrying off into the darkness just as Filch slammed open the door with a loud exclamation of '#"AHA!"

"Thanks, Rowle." Harry whispered as they slipped out on the other side into another unused classroom, instead flopping out of the cramped space from behind a vacant portrait of an Elizabethan bedroom and onto the dusty floor.

"Yeah."

She strode off, Ron making a noise of indifference as he slipped to the ground and looked after the girl with confusion at her sudden attitude,

"Wait, what's that?" Harry wondered aloud, following Delphi's path with his eyes,  
"Checking your make-up, Rowle?" Ron called as she approached a golden framed mirror in the centre of the room. All the desks and chairs having been stacked and shoved against the walls in order to give the mirror centre stage, as if it were some sort of exhibit. Delphini stepped over a snow white drape, lazily laying on the ground, without a glance as she looked up in it, the pair of boys following along mutely.

"What's the big deal, Rowle. You've got a real intense look on your face right now." Ron asked as he looked to her then to the crystal clear glass, "Wow, hey! In this mirror I'm head boy! Look, I'm Quidditch Captain too, there's the cup in my hand. Do you see?"

Harry shook his head. As Harry looked up into it with wide, unbelieving eyes, Ron wasn't in the mirror, he was. On the left a bespectacled man who looked like him and a woman with fiery red hair and his emerald green eyes on his left. James and Lily Potter, his parents.

"D-Do you think this mirror shows us the future?" Ron gasped out without looking away,  
"No. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." Delphi almost whispered her reply,

"Harry, she's speaking in tongues!" For the first time since witnessing it, Ron looked away as he shrunk from Delphini in fear, "What the hell was that? Some sort of curse?"

"NO, you idiot. What incantation would be that long and ridiculous, you dunce?!"

"Maybe a spell to turn rats yellow?" Harry smirked and Ron's ears visibly turned red in the low light,

"Shut up Harry."

"But what is that?" Harry ignored him, peering away from his own reflection in reluctance,

"It says_'I show not your face but your heart's desire'_."

Delpini was surprised when Harry simply sighed and looked at the mirror mournfully,

"I thought so." He sighed out with a heavy expression, his own gaze on the couple in the mirror with an empty feeling he did not like. He pried his gaze from the image with a sneer.

"What do you see?" She quietly inquired,  
"My parents. They left me, and I don't know why." Harry answered quietly, Ron visibly surprised whilst Delphini's expression was pinched by pain, "I've only seen them in a picture in the newspaper."

"I don't know what mine look like. I was left with a foster mother as a baby, I don't even know their names."

Harry turned to her with a similar expression,

"I'm guessing you see them, though?"

"It's just shadows, I don't even have enough imagination to imagine myself parents. But I know that its supposed to be them and some friends."

"That's what you want? Family and friends?" Ron piped up in incredulity, the two turning to him in surprise,

"Not all of us literally want the world." Delphini scowled,

"I'd be happy with that as well. More than happy." Harry breathed out, looking longingly at the mirror version of his parent, his own hand rising to his shoulder when his father's hand settled there on his reflection. Looking to the empty space and feeling another sharp stab at his heart. Dropping his hand and cursing himself for the shred of feeling that had blossomed for the brief second,

"My friends call me Delphi." Delphini whispered, "Or the ones I did have when I was little."

"Like the seers?" Harry asked, surprising the girl who turned and raised an eyebrow,

"You don't strike me as someone with even a passing knowledge of Ancient Greece."

"Looks can be deceiving, history was my favourite subject in primary school." Harry scoffed, a hand settling onto his chest in mock hurt, "And my boss is a massive history buff."  
"Too bad Binns turns it into a snore fest." Delphini grumbled,

"A literal one." Harry mused aloud and the two snickered.

"So, may I call you Delphi?" Harry asked after a quiet contemplative pause in which the three of them beheld their deepest dreams in the magical mirror. Delphi watching her reflection's face change as she was stunned at the question, and its silent implications,

"I… I don't know. CAN you?" She strangled her surprise and smirked, waggling her eyebrows as Harry turned to her with an unimpressed smirk of his own,

"You're an absoloute ass, Delphini Rowle." Harry spat out, a toothy grin splitting his face as he beheld the girl beside them, "I think I'm going to like you."

She mirrored his expression. Ron looked on in disbelief, blind to one of the shadows by Delphi's reflection morphed into the grinning, green eyed visage of Harry James Potter.

...

* * *

...

_**Authors Note**_

_**vashthesnake: Thanks for pointing out some of the stuff I'd missed last chapter, I thought I'd got everything haha. I'm glad you're liking the story and thanks again!**_

_**Ruberforumfree: HI again! Nice to see ya. I don't really plan on genderbend's at all so you don't have to worry (though I have been planning a genderbend Harry story for a while lol)**_

_**CAD270895: Thanks pal!**_

_**DRAGONDAVE45: Thanks, I am still planning on a Golden Trio-esque friendship but it's not going to be exactly the same as canon (especially with Delphi involved) and I do have some plans in regards to Quidditch... maybe not what you're thinking though. Also, is Ghidora not a better Titan Mascot for Slytherin? Especially with the rivalry with Godzilla and their ambition to be an apex predator. Sorry if you were waiting on me to Review btw, I have been meaning to but kinda forgot to, I really like your ideas and concepts x**_

_**Thanks for reading guys!**_


	7. Chapter 7

A Wizards Life in Magical Academia _re:_

_Chapter 7__:_

**_Year 1_**

October had come, a sharp icy breeze present in every nook of that cavernous castle now.

Today not the best day for Harry James Potter.

He'd received a Troll on his Energy Potion (apparently the worst grade you could receive) despite the potion being identical to the Exceeds Expectation worthy potion Malfoy had smugly submitted. Causing him to stalk to lunch in a foul mood.

Said mood only getting worse upon actually sitting through the meal.

"Are you sure you're okay with sitting here?" Harry inquired, setting his spoon down besides his bowl of soup as he gratefully accepted the platter of bread rolls from a flushed Neville,

"The rest of my house doesn't speak to me anyway, why would they care where I sit?" Delphi, humming out her reply non-committally as Ron's expression became pinched and suspicious,

"Why?"  
"I'm a halfblood, Weasley. I don't really fit in with... their kind."  
She jerked her head to the House of silver and green, where (despite her blase statement that they wouldn't care) Malfoy was glowering at the three of them from across the room and a few others in her house looked scandalised. Delphi reaching for a bread roll as mutters and glares met her from the Gryffindor table also, buttering it with a small smile as Harry glared down an incensed Cormac McClaggen who looked DESPERATE to say something.

"Are there really no halfbloods in Slytherin?" Harry more wondered aloud than actually asking the girl beside him, she answered all the same,

"Nah, there are a few. Tracey Davies is a halfblood, but she's part of Daphne's clique so it's overlooked."  
"So it's a _'who you know'_ sort of setup?" Harry actually asked, met with a nod,

"Yeah. Another example would be Miliscent, Goyle and Crabbe. They're idiots and their families are poor, but they are openly allied to Parkinson and Malfoy, so not even the older years would dare say anything to them."  
"What about Zabini?" Ron blurted out, having sat with his lips clamped closed the moment the girl had slipped into the seat between him and his best friend.

"He's like me I guess, no one talks to him." She shrugged, the three of them (independent of one another) found their eyes flicking to the dark skinned boy on the otherside of the room, his eyes on a small book in his right hand as he stirred a cup with his left, "But people don't talk to him cause they're scared, not because he's a nobody or his blood status."  
"He's a pureblood." Ron muttered to himself, unintentionally answering a question Harry had thought to ask, "Though I'm not surprised."

Harry did manage this question though,  
"Why would they be scared of him?" Met with stunned looks before realisation dawned on Ron's face,

"How do you-"

"Right! You were raised by Muggles so you wouldn't know."  
"Wait- really?! I thought that was just a rumour!" Delphi nearly shrieked out, drawing even more attention to the three of them and giving them even more points and muttering to ignore,

"Well mate, it's not Zabini they're scared of, but his mum."

"Harry!" A cheery, hopeful male voice that stopped Harry from inquiring further.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, a weight settling in his stomach as the three of them twisted round to the brunette boy jogging to them from the door to the Entrance Hall.

"Hi Oliver." Harry sighed, meeting the exuberant grin of Oliver Wood's with a tired one of his own. He was thankful for Ron truly in this moment, as the ginger flicked his eyes between the two of them before setting to gathering up their lunch to go, elbowing Delphi to do the same instead of staring down the approaching fifth year.

"Glad I caught you!"  
"Well I'm just here. Eating my lunch." He intoned slowly, tone leading and a little expectant. Harry even went so far as to pick up his spoon and waved it a bit to give Oliver a hint. The older boy ( to his credit) seemed to get the hint and hit him with a nod, his smile dripping off of his face giving Harry the comfort to turn away and turn back to his food.

But of course it wasn't over.

Delphi tugged at his sleeve and jerked her head behind them, a flat expression on her face. The state of Oliver Wood when Harry turned around honestly left him speechless.

He was on his knees, hands clasped as if in prayer and giving Harry a feeling of sheer mortification,

"Please! Please join the team!" Oliver Wood, sixteen years of age, shrieked out his plea with actual tears teetering on the edge of his big, brown eyes, "You're exactly what I need. I've got the best team I can possibly make right now, with the exception of a top tier Seeker. I'll do anything you want, just please play with us!"

A moment, then two. In all honesty, one could have told Harry he'd stared down at Oliver Wood for a decade, mouth agape as he visibly searched for a response and he would have believed them.

And he would have believed that Oliver really did curl up into a ball and sob on the Great Hall floor when he simply placed his spoon down on the table, slipped his bag on and walked away...

It was about five minutes later, down the corridors to their destination when Delphi finally brought her amused (yet seemingly incensed) rant to a close,

"Honestly, it was pathetic." The girl was struggling to speak through her strings of giggles, ignoring the condemnation from Ron and Harry in their sidelong glares,  
"Leave him alone." Harry folded his arms as she continued,

"Why don't you just ask that Florean guy to get you to work different days." She folded her arms over her chest, the grin she'd had on her face for the past ten minutes sinking into a more perplexed look,

"It's not my place to tell Mr Fortescue when I will and won't work." Harry shook his head, surprising the two with the small half-sigh of disappointment that almost escaped his body, "I'm lucky to have the job I have AND I still need it."  
"Why don't you just tell Wood that?" Delphi fiddled with the strap of her dusty black satchel as she levelled him with a pleasantly curious amethyst stare,

"Because, technically, I shouldn't be leaving the school to go do it."

Delphi's eyebrows rose high and Harry took that as a wordless instruction to continue,

"I kinda... punked the system. I am supposed to get a member of staff to sign off on me coming and going. But the slip claimed that that member of staff should also ensure I have permission of my Head of House."  
"And you didn't ask McGonagall?" Ron's inquiry met with a head shake, "Why?"  
"Professor McGonagall has been kind of funny with me since I borrowed that book from her." Harry folding his ownarms over his chest as Delphi stood to the side not knowing what he was talking about, "I don't think she'd say yes. So I'm gonna keep it a secret."  
"For how long?" Ron,  
"As long as I can get away with it." He met Delphi's unimpressed sneer with a daring look, "Can't get in trouble if they don't know I should be."  
The girl said nothing further on the point, instead snickering to herself again,

"I'm kinda glad you've kept it to yourself." She shook her head and nearly skipped in merriment with a smirk on her lips, "Honestly, seeing a bloody fifth year on his knees begging a first year for something as innocuous as Quidditch is just ludicrous enough to make my day."

Ron glared, Harry shook his head as he responded,

"Though, I can't imagine loving a sport that much" A harsh snort-like chuckle ripping past his lips seemingly involuntary, "I really do feel bad for just walking out on him like that."

"Only at Hogwarts." Delphi dramatically sighed, the two openly laughed as Ron bit back on a grin.

...

* * *

...

A stormy afternoon met the Hogwarts students, four p.m. having the majority of the schools occupants huddled away somewhere in doors, staving off the damp, wet and chill beside cozy fires or within warm cubbies as soon as classes ended.

The Gryffindors (mostly nestled in their Common Room) no exception,

"Announcing the **magnanimous**, Fred!"  
"Announcing the _illustrious_, George!"

"Here to make your day!" Cheery and simultaneous, a lanky duo of freckly red heads plopped onto the sofa; twins now either side of a younger and shorter looking lad who could only be their younger sibling. Said younger sibling, Ronald (Ron) Weasley midway through a vicious trouncing of a scowling Cormac McClaggen. The elder boy red faced and muttering expletives under his breath as he ran his hands through his wiry hair and scowled at his petulant bishop, refusing to move as Ron's queen flicked obscene gestures in its direction.

"What do you want?" Ron snapped, rolling his head to his left to lock hazel eyes onto the brother he recognised as Fred,

"Aww, Ronnie! How mean!"  
"Can't we just want to check in on our ickle baby Ron-Ron?"

Ron became very wary of his brothers moving hands, well aware of the two's deftness at slight of hand and was left to fantasize (in growing horror) at what sickening prank they'd done to him this time,

"Oh calm down." Expression read by Fred,

"We did it three hours ago, and it won't take effect until breakfast." A reply broke by George's snicker.

Impish grins twisted up the lips of the twins as that information settled in Ron's mind, the tips of his ears cherry red as the rest of the colour on his face faded into white,

"Joking!" They exclaimed in unison, Ron was not convinced, the two ignored that fact.

"We're going to keep it simple, brother mine." Fred folded his arms and leaned quite heavily back into the plush red and gold sofa as his twin leaned forward in his own seat, "We're here on business."

"Oliver has a fantastic idea, truly brilliant really." George nodded vigorously as he spoke, only briefly interrupted by Lee Jordan's smirking remark,  
"For a guy who sleeps with a Quaffle." and he was met with a few surprised looks and snickers,  
"As Harry Potter's designated best mate, Oliver thinks you're the best person to ask on how we could get Harry to join the team."  
"Our first match is in a few week and Oli needs Harry to train with the team at least once before then."  
"We're running out of time and Oli's going spare."

"At this rate we're gonna have to ACTUALLY use that knob Cormac."  
A pause settled over the trio, Ron's eyes flicking across the table to a boy forgotten by the duo. Until he flicked his eyes back to his brothers who had a sharp but amused glimmer in their own gaze, clearly daring the visibly livid boy to say or do anything in response.

He stood quickly, flying to his feet and smashing his knees on the table in the process (knocking the remaining chess pieces down) as he ground his teeth closed, his fingers into fists and stormed off to the opposite side of the squat Gryffindor Common room.

"Good, now that he's gone..."

"...spill the Knuts, brother mine."

Fred and George leaning in on their brother, said boy pushing them off and away, instead leaning forward to gather up the downed chess pieces and put everything away. Gaze focussed on his task even as he formed his reply,

"I don't bloody know." His lips propped forth in small pout, his hand scratching at his scalp for a moment as he hummed to himself, "He's... Harry didn't tell me why he said no. I mean, I wouldn't."

Ron shook his head, resisting the urge to roll his eyes also as he remembered that afternoon,

"Honestly, I wonder if he just wants to string Wood along." He huffed, nostril flared a little, "He and Rowle laughed a bit about it afterwards."

Ron slid the chess set away and slumped back into his seat, shaking his head almost the whole way,

"Nah, that's not right." Ron sighed, "He has his own reasons for not joining the team."

"And those are?"  
"None of your business." Ron folded his arms and ignored the two. Going so far as to begin to make a path to the dorms and escape entirely.

A vice like grip on each of his arms said otherwise,

"Right, Ronnie, let's explain you something."

"If Oli doesn't get a reason from Harry as to why he's not getting Harry on the team, Oli will keep bothering him." George, a remarkably serious expression freezing his features in place,

"So... if you're really his friend, you'll give us a good reason to go back to Oliver with." Fred on Ron's otherside, leaning in with an almost compassionate gaze boring into him, "For Harry's sake."

...

* * *

...

"That'll be 25 Sickles, please."

"Ah, hold on, I have this coupon." The pink clad woman chirped out with a toothy smile.

Harry smiled thinly but patiently, knowing full well what he was going to have to say when she pulled out a familiar slip of paper that had been cut out of the magical publication, The Daily Prophet,

"I'm sorry, ma'am. But I'm afraid that we no longer accept the Daily Prophet, 50% off vouchers. That promotion is, unfortunately, no longer running."

_'Please don't prove me right. Please don't prove me right.'_ Harry prayed to himself over and over again, worrying his hands together from beneath the counter as he watched the words sink in for the woman with a held breath,

"What do you- no longer running?"

"Yes ma'am, the voucher has expired."

"Look sweetheart." Harry winced as the woman spoke her words in a sickly sweet, condescending tone, "I'm sure that crook, Fortescue, has told you what your supposed to say when presented with these. But you haven't even looked at the slip of paper so how can you possibly tell me it has expired."

"If it would alleviate your concerns, I would be willing to point to the printed expiration date on the bottom left of the voucher." Harry responded with a smirk he was really fighting to keep off of his face,

"Yes, it really would, then you can take it and give me my…" Her words trailed off as she herself viewed the mentioned section of her voucher, Harry allowing smugness to infect his carefully sculpted smile,

"Would you let me see it please, ma'am." Harry held out his hand expectantly and the woman scowled and flung it onto the counter. Harry's smile completing the metamorphosis into a smirk at the petulance as he picked it up, flipped it over and made a big display of dragging his finger over the paper and finding the date, "Aha, there it is. As you can see, right here, it expired on the 29th of October and today is the 30th. Thus, I must regrettably apologise as it is now expired and we are no longer accepting

"Buh… It's only a few days. MAKE AN EXCEPTION!" She demanded at volume and missed the narrowing of Harry's eyes and the clenching of his fists under the register,

"I'm sorry, our policy does not allow for such actions. I am sorry." Harry spoke as levelly as he could muster, despite his urge to throttle the woman in question, "Now, that will be 25 sickles. Please."

He spat out the last word and felt, rather than saw, the fearful cringe of the short woman before she rummaged in her pastel pink handbag with a grumble and thrust forth the appropriate currency. Harry taking it with a sweet smile and a sickly 'thanks'.

"May I have your name please, madam? So I can call when your treat has been prepared."

"Madam Dolores Umbridge." She sniffed, drawing herself to her full, unimpressive height and attempting to look down her nose at the eleven-year old who stood an inch taller.

"Lovely, if you would please move aside it will be prepared shortly. Next please." Harry glared at her in his peripheral vision and saw her cheeks turn scarlet as he turned his well-practiced smile to the next customer.

A good few minutes later, the foul woman took her three cones with her (with much scowling and muttering),

"She was… foul." Aster, the amber eyed cashier beside him, thin black lips turned down in a grimace as the somewhat toad-like woman waddled away, the girl running talon-like hands through her neck length hair as she glared her away, "Did you see the way she looked at me?"

Harry shook his head, not in denial of seeing it, but in disgust at the Umbridge woman's actions,

"She's disgusting." Harry said as he grabbed a tray of glasses to take to be washed. Settling in to do some cleaning and hoping he'd never run into the foul Dolores Umbridge ever again.

"At least she didn't ask for the Manager." Bill snickered as he flicked a wand off to the shop floor and wrenched the dust and grime from the floor. It hovered a few inches off of the ground before vanishing

"Evanesco is the incantation, try it back at Hogwarts."

"Thanks Bill." Harry cheerily called, jotting down the spell on another littler requisitioned list to add to his collection, receiving a wave off from Bill as soon as Florean came out from the back of the shop with his eyes on a roll of parchment about two feet long. A little smirk on his lips that left his staff fairly curious as to its contents,

"That's you for the day Harry, your pay for September's on the table upstairs. Grab it and get yourself safe back to school." He flicked his eyes up at the boy and was met with a grateful little nod before he said his goodbyes. Graciously rejecting the offer of an escort to King's Cross.

He didn't fly off the his seat this time, but he _did_ thump into the doorway of the compartment when he made to leave just a little too soon, thus the Hogwarts Express was met with the same loathsome glower he had for the entire month of September so far. All before he took a deep breath, tugged his school cloak up around his neck before sprinting through the mud and rain back up to the castle. Bouncing from one foot to another in cold and impatience as he waited for Hagrid to let him in about fifteen minutes later.

Everything was going fine, until his drenched self found his way back into the Gryffindor tower...

Harry glared, blindly and unimpressed as he hung upside down with his glasses on the floor. The feeling of rope bound around his ankle and holding him aloft just on the other side of the Fat Lady's portrait as the Gryffindor's laughed up a storm at his misfortune,

"Nice one, brother mine."

"Not too shabby yourself, brother mine."

"Hi Harry, you ok?" A familiar voice found his ears after the two mischievous lines prior,

"I'd be better if I could see." He glared at the brown unfocused blob in front of him who quickly scrabbled down to retrieve his glasses and place them on his face. Once his sight was restored, the glare simply turned withering in the face of Oliver Wood, frozen and gaping at the boys look, "Is this your play, Oliver? Bully me into joining the team?"

Maybe he was expecting some reply, but the wide eyes and stiffening of his figure showed that that wasn't the one,

"Whu- What? No! I… I just…" A trio of older girls sidled up behind the spluttering Wood with expressions of equivalent amusement and disbelief,

"Our dear captain has been desperate to speak to you, but unable to catch you. So, he asked our teams lovely Beaters, who double as this schools resident fools, to set a little trap for you." The youngest looking of the tree spoke up, shoulder length brown hair ruffled in her own hands, "Hi, I'm Katie"

"Trap is a very strong word." One of the two redhead who had spoken prior,

"This is a very strong rope. _Trapping_ me in place." Harry glared, the two redheads grinning impishly and fist bumping each other. He sighed tiredly, "Nice to meet you Katie. Are you a Chaser then?"

"Uh huh! Joined this year, I'm a second year." She responded gleefully, grinning brightly before settling into a comfortable smirk, "You can call me _'senpai'_ if you like."

Harry's eyebrows knitted together in massive confusion,

"Why would I call you that? Is it a nickname or something?" He asked in utter bewilderment, the feeling deepening as she visibly deflated and a few of his housemates laughed again,

"Welp, I guess Harry Potter is a normie." She sighed, looking genuinely disappointed as she stepped back a bit. Harry feeling affronted for what he perceived as a slight and a bit disheartened, "Shame, you're so cute too."

"I think we should get back on topic." Oliver drew attention to himself as he stood with his hands on his hips and stared down the hanging Gryffindor, "I've seen the memory of your little manoeuvre, I don't think even the great Charlie Weasley could have pulled off a fifty foot dive. Let alone at eleven, or on his first broom lesson."

Harry winced when he heard stunned gasps and whispers spreading around the common room from his other housemates, trying to drown them out he spoke up,

"Who's Charlie Weasley?" Harry asked, convinced he must be one of Ron's older, graduated, brothers,

"Our big bro." The redheads spoke in unison, "He was the teams Seeker whilst he was here, one of the best we've ever had."

"Yes, I got to play with him. He was incredible, could have played for the national team if he really wanted. Instead he got into dragon taming." Oliver shrugged and his posture radiated disappointment, "Although I think he wasted his talent, I respect his wishes. But every fibre in my body refuses to allow who I see to be his second coming not reach the truly glorious potential he is destined for!"

Oliver's eyes glimmered with light and he pointed a righteous finger at him as he made his heated declaration,

"You, Harry Potter, are going to be an incredible Quidditch player. A walking testament of the glory of the game!" Oliver continued with passion that made Harry blush crimson, "And I'll get you there, no matter if you can't make every training session cause of your work."

"It's not really about missing training, I only work weekends. It's more getting the time off work to play matches on a Saturday." Harry admitted with a blushing sigh, "My boss is really nice allowing me to have a job in the first place. Palming off all he's done for me just to go fly around on a broom for a day feels… wrong."

"No need to worry though." Katie placated warmly,  
"Yeah, Oliver completely went behind your back," Fred started,

"Found out where you worked," George continued,

"And sent a friendly little letter begging you to be part of the team." Both announced together with ear to ear grins, "Isn't that great?!"

Harry paused as the display struck him momentarily dumb, before their words sunk in. Only now realising he'd even admitted he had a job as he realised what they were implying Oliver had done,

"You what?!" He roared, silencing the room as if he'd flicked a switch. Harry would later wonder how intimidating an angry, upside-down eleven year old actually was, but Wood very clearly didn't appreciate the anger and volume. The older boy jumping half a foot back at the shout,

"I erm… Sent Mr Fortescue a letter to ask for you to be allowed onto the team." His bravado vanishing instantly, like a carpet being pulled from beneath his feet, as he suddenly became a blushing sheepish mess,

"Give me it."

"The… letter?"

"Yes, you colossal fool, hand it over. Now!" Harry roared and the older boy leaped a foot back, scrambled around and ran up towards the boys dormitory,

"Th-That wasn't very nice, Harry." Hermione Granger surprised him as the others laughed at their teams Captain, the girl glaring up at him unimpressed,

"What isn't nice is going behind peoples back for your own selfish reasons, Granger." Harry replied with some heat, "I don't have to be all pleased about it. No matter why they did it or who."

Hermione opened her mouth, seemingly to retort, but had nothing to say and simply folded her arms and strode away. Harry rolling his eyes at the bookworm's departure before turning back to the staircase as Oliver ran back down with a short sheet of parchment in hand. Harry grabbing it from him and flipping it around in order for him to read,

**_Dear, Mr Wood_**

**_I must admit, the passion in your words, and the horrific plight my old Houses Quidditch team now finds itself in, truly moved me almost to tears. It is rare to hear news of this sort from the castle in this day and age (the downsides of maturity, I'm afraid) but to hear this devastating tale AND find out that I hold the key to turning it away from tragedy was the only thing that kept me from bawling myself dry._**

**_You have my blessing, young Mister Potter is yours to train into a Seeker of devastating performance and skill. To mould him into the man who will lead our glorious houses proud team to the Quidditch Cup it rightfully deserves._**

**_But I must warn you, as for his character reference, Mister Potter has a bit of a quirk…_**

**_I warn you, he is an incredibly kind and warm hearted young man, a fast learner and a hard worker of such a calibre that he could turn the Hufflepuffs, Slytherin green, but he is massively stubborn. I know this first hand and warn that it is not me you should beg but him. If he decides he does not wish to join your team then I am afraid you are out of luck, my young friend._**

**_I wish you luck and will be coming to see the games as often as I can manage, regardless of the outcome._**

**_With compliments,_**

**_Florean Fortescue_**

Percy Weasley started in horror as he trekked down the stairs of the boy's dormitory and found a first year hung upside down with most of the house forming a semi-circle around his suspended form, the boy looking to be holding in tears as a piece of parchment slipped from between his fingers.

"What on earth is all this!" The prefect demanded in fury as he stormed through the crowd, the Gryffindor team turning in surprise at his approach (missing Harry wiping a sleeve over his eyes surreptitiously),

"It was them!" Katie quickly jabbed a finger at the twins who nodded gratefully at their teammate, smirking at their elder brother.

As Percy scolded his brothers, Harry pulled himself up towards the ceiling and wordlessly untied the rope that bound him to one of the light fixtures. Rolling in the air to land crouching,

"My cousin and his friends did that to me once, when I was little." He explained away the motion to a few people who gasped in the face of it, Harry scowled at the memory and walked up to Oliver, "My work will always come before the team, but I do promise I will give training and every game 100%."

Oliver looked down in surprise before scooping up his hand and almost shaking off his arm with a sun bright grin,

"That's all I need from you, Harry Potter." He declared with teary eyes, "Welcome aboard."

Their assembled Housemates cheers and applause shook the glass of the windows and summoned up McGonagall to check for the source of the racket. They partied that night as if they had already won the cup…

...

* * *

**_[Author's Note]_**

**_Whoop! Thanks for reading this chapter, it took a little to actually get this bit done but am happy with how it turned out. Hope you guys are too!_**

**_DRAGONDAVE45: As much as I'd love to answer your questions, they're a bit spoilery, so I'll keep the asnwers to myself for now ;)_**

**_And I'll have to take your assessment on that for house kaiju._**

**_Thanks for reading and see you next time!_**


End file.
